Perspective lifes
by Dracon Asahara
Summary: Having lost her date for an upcoming event Paulina tries to find someone who fits the bill and accompanies her. Danny meanwhile has to deal with Vlad's newest sheme. And what was that about a class project? DxP
1. Dateless

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom, no matter how much I wished I did…

Warning! This is my first DP fanfiction. I'm also not a native speaker and so my language might not be as good as I wished it to be. Any advice is welcomed with open arms. ^ ^°

By the way this will most likely be DannyxPaulina later on. I don't like Paulina and I know a lot of you feel the same and won't like his paring but give me a chance, I will try to make it reasonable.

So have much fun reading. ^^

* * *

Paulina sighed and scrutinised her nails. They were painted in a soft pink which had just the slightest metallic touch to it. She had found that specific colour last weekend when she had made a shopping trip with Star and now thought it suited her quite well. It wasn't such a terribly bright colour like the other ones she had at home and she found herself contemplating about whether she should or shouldn't buy a few more lighter coloured ones.

They where actually quite pretty and gave a more _grown up_ impression.

Maybe Phantom would like them. Then again, he would most likely never notice.

She sighed at that thought and turned back to the actual matter at hand. Ugh, how she hated tests - especially in maths. She hadn't really studied and the questions were ridiculous difficult. And aside from that, what use could it possible have for her to be able to solve a bunch of mathematical problems?

After scowling at her mostly blanc answer sheet, she glanced at the clock watching one of its hand move a few millimetres every second. She soon found herself tapping her pencil lightly at the table in the same tact.

54 seconds to go until lunch.

She let her gaze wander through the classroom. A few students where frantically trying to write down at least one more answer before the bell would announce the end of the lesson, others just stared in space and some –namely the geeks- were simply proofreading their papers for what seemed to be the tenth time. She just wondered if she should make one of them do some extra homework for her so that she could later give it to her teacher for extra credit as compensation for the screwed up test, as the bell finally rung.

Everybody hastily packed their things, gave in their worksheets and exited the room, happy to finally get something to eat and possibly a little bit of rest before the next period would begin. Quickly doing the same Paulina was soon on her way to the cafeteria where the other A-Lister where surely already waiting for her.

As she strode through the hallways she was well aware of all the second glances or open stares she got and even if she didn't show it, she relished in them. Being the most popular girl in school was definitely something too be proud of in her opinion. It wasn't enough to simply be pretty and rich, one also had to have the social skills required. That also included the ability to behave and present yourself in such a superior manner, that it doesn't leave room for discussion about your social status, and being able to tell with whom association would have benefits and with whom not.

Luckily Paulina Sanchez had all that - She was gorgeous, well-off in the money department and knew how to act and whom to befriend.

All in all her life was pretty darn perfect. Or would be at least, if it wasn't for two mayor issues - namely her grades and her lack of a boyfriend. The first was something that was constantly giving her headaches, especially since her parents didn't approve of her C - Average and seeing that her senior year was slowly nearing its end, they had started bugging her about it.

The second problem was a little more delicate and she preferred not having to think about it.

"Paulina! Oh gosh! You wouldn't believe what happened!" a voice suddenly called out just as she entered the lunchroom.

Star, a girl with bright, blond hair and blue eyes, was at her side in a matter of seconds, accompanying her on her way to the tables which were occupied by the `popular kids´. Obviously the blond had been waiting for her at the entrance and it seemed like she was just about to burst if she couldn't relieve herself of the newest gossip which she had most likely heard in the halls.

"Tell me." was all the encouragement the girl needed to start rambling.

Normally Paulina tuned the girl out. It wasn't that she didn't like gossip, - hell she loved it! - , it was just that everything that didn't concern her directly wasn't truly worth her full attention. Other people's problems tended to be rather boring and it was rare that something outrageous enough happened to keep her interested. "…and then he said he couldn't go to the party with you!"

This last sentence got Star the Hispanics full attention.

"_What?!"_ she shrieked.

* * *

To say Danny was annoyed would be an understatement. He guessed he should most likely be used to Tuckers constant banter with the chess-dude by now, but it sill got on his nerves. Ever since Sam left they had been sitting at the table of the chess- and math-club-geeks.

Two years ago, shortly before the end of their firs high-school year, Sam had told them the bad news. The goth's parents had finally had enough after she came back from a ghost hunting trip at 3 am. They got all the more irritated when their daughter refused to tell them where she had been. Fearing that she might have gotten in the wrong circles, they decided to put an end to their worries by sending her off to some boarding school for wealthy children.

Sam had thought that the term _`Holding facility for arrogant, spoiled, rich, little bastards´_, was more accurate. To be simple: She wasn't happy about her parent's decision.

Danny and Tucker had been devastated at first, trying everything they could to help their friend persuade her parents into letting her stay. Needless to say their attempts had been futile. And even worse, they couldn't even visit her, since the Mansons had obviously thought it would be best to send their daughter away s far as possible from the bad influence of Amity Park and her two best friends.

England. Not even with the Spectre Speeder they would be able to travel that far. And so Sam was gone, there was no way of visiting her and the only communication they had was when she managed to sneak into an internet-café and write them a mail. Every few months so to speak.

Turning back to the problem at hand, Danny's left eye twitched. After Sam had gone Tucker had made friends with the captain of the chess-club. Seeing how he and Tucker occupied a whole table alone, the techno-geek had decided it would be a great idea to share their table with them.

Too bad that they had picked up a habit which had originally belonged to Sam and Tucker: bickering.

And whereas Danny had been used to such, he wasn't used to one which was completely senseless. The problem with his best friend and the chess-dude was, that they argued over every little thing, no matter how unimportant and no matter if there was a disagreement in the first place or not. Even after having heard it hundreds of times the youngest Fenton was still mesmerized by the sheer stupidity of the whole orderal.

"No duh, Star's hair has the beauty and brilliance of the sun!"

"No way! Her hair twinkles like a thousand stars! The sun is ways to bright, she isn't platin-blond!"

"A star's light is way to dim to be compared to her perfect hair!"

"Obviously her parents agree with me though, seeing as how she is named Star!"

"Nonsense! Do you truly think…."

Danny groaned. Right, the reason why they had become friends in the first place - they shared an obsession, namely Star, and where obviously death bound on driving him insane with it. Seriously, who the heck cared if her hair twinkled like stars, or shined like the sun?!

For a moment he wondered if he should remind them, that those two things where the same anyway.

Then again, he was tired and didn't really have the nerve to get involved at the moment, so he kept that bit of information to himself. They would notice it anyway. Eventually.

The black haired teenager put his head on his folded arms, rearranged his hood and closed his eyes. He had had a long night out ghost fighting, and was more than just a little groggy. If he could get a good portion of sleep now, maybe he could manage to stay awake in his next class after lunch, English with Lancer. He really had had enough detention already. Just as he slowly drifted off to sleep, he heard a high-pitched, furious _"What?!"_ echo through the room, startling him completely awake again.

_`Great now I'm not even allowed to sleep in my free time anymore. Not that that is new, thought…´_

* * *

Paulina seethed, she couldn't believe this! ´_How can that moron refuse to go out with me, just because his girlfriend got a little bitchy over it?!`_

She was sitting at her usual place between Star and Dash. Glaring at her diet-soda she contemplated her options. Now that Star's stupid cousin wouldn't accompany her anymore, she needed to find a replacement. `_Simpler said then done, though.´_

Ever since Paulina discovered that going out with only one guy put her into situations she would rather evade, she had created her own `dating system´. For certain occasions she would choose a certain guy. Of course those dates never went as far as kissing or similar. She wouldn't want to count as `cheap´ now, would she?

She preferred the word courting anyway.

Her system had been flawless. If she wanted to go swimming she would take a jockey with her, since those had the right upper bodies to show off. If she was going to the cinema it would be with someone who knew how to act like a gentleman and opened her doors, paid her ticket, reserved heir seats in advance, drove her home and so on. Shopping was something she mostly did with the rich guys. Not that her papa wouldn't let her buy whatever she wanted anyway, but why use your own money if you could use others?

But then there had been the party. Her parents where having a garden-party and as always she had chosen someone with a nice face for it. Since all she needed to do was showing off a `good looking´ guy she had thought it would be enough. That was until a few of the guests decided to talk to him.

Seeing that most of the invited people where business partners of her father, the boy hadn't even been able to get a decent conversation going. He too had been part of the A-List, but this sadly disqualified him in the knowledge apartment, meaning he had no idea what others where talking about.

For Paulina it had been really embarrassing and she decided to be more careful in the future.

From here on she hadn't found a single person who she could take to such events, since they more or less demanded more than just good looks or full pockets.

It was custom for the males and females to separate at some point at the party and star talking in groups. She herself never had had any complications with this, she had grown up in that environment after all. But she had to admit, that it might be a little more difficult for the guys.

Her father and his friends normally talked about politics and economy. Sometimes they ended up with topics like sport or cars, though. Finding somebody who could possibly keep up there and wasn't the personification of geek-ness seemed impossible.

Until she met Stars cousin Frederick, that is.

In her opinion he had been perfect for the job. He had been someone, one could call a male version of Jasmine Fenton. Smart, good looking, popular and in college. Paulina had been overjoyed when she found out that his main interest was politic.

Frederick had agreed to accompany her to the next event, which just so happened to be one of the bigger charity galas. He had also made it clear that he only did it as a favour and that it was not a date. Apparently he already had a girlfriend and she wouldn't be all too thrilled about the whole thing anyway.

Too bad that this very girlfriend hadn't been as cooperative and had told him to cancel the whole thing. _`Stupid bitch´_

"Oh, I'm so sorry for you. What will you do now Paulina?" asked another girl at her table.

Paulina looked up from her drink and put on a confident mask. "It's alright it is not as if I couldn't find someone else to go out with after all." she said sounding as relaxed as possible. "The party is in two weeks, I've got more than enough time." she waved her hand, dismissing he theme.

The disappointment in he other girls eyes was obvious as they started debating other themes. Paulina scoffed. She wasn't stupid, she knew that everyone was hoping for her to slip and fall, even if only once. If she had shown how much this truly bothered her, all that it would have caused was satisfaction for the others and a lot of false pity towards her. In order for someone to rise in the ranks of popularity, another has to sink.

_`Luck is when the bad__ luck hits the others, eh?´_, she thought sourly.

Not that anyone could truly rival her, she _did_ run the school. Popular were only those who she wanted to be. That didn't mean she could completely ignore looks, behaviour and money, the three most important points for one of her crowd, but she could sure as hell circumvent them.

The rest of the break continued without any mayor happenings, not even a ghost attacked. After having said their goodbye to her friends, Paulina and Star walked to their next lesson together, since they both had English next. Dash and Kwan didn't go with them since they made a small detour, wanting to stuff someone in a locker before classes started.

As they arrived in their classroom Paulina took her seat next to Star, looking out of the window in thought. She was really worried about the Frederick thing. Having already announced to come with company, it would be humiliating to arrive alone and she really didn't want to be the centre of the other girl's gossip.

_`I need to find a replacement. And fast.´_


	2. Over the years

Hello!

I wanted to thank all my readers for …eh… reading (That sounds lame…) and especially those who reviewed!!! Thanks so much! ^^

**Serial-Doodler**** : **Thank you for the review**! **Well, I pretty much wanted to get rid of Sam because it would have been too much trouble to work the story around her. Hehe….^^

**Dream Trance**** :** OMG! I didn't notice that I mixed up 'though' and 'thought' until you told me so! I corrected it and I hope I got all of them. I'm really grateful for your correction! (the same goes for the comma thing – they are so confusing!). Writing Paulina is really difficult for me and I hope she won't be too weird in this chapter but I think everyone grows up at some point, even if only a bit….Well, thank you again and I hope You'll like he chapter.^^

**Writer's-BlockDP**** :** I'm glad you are giving it a chance, I have to admit I don't like this pairing that much either. But I prefer writing a pairing which is a little unpopular, it's fun and I can really try out new things.^^

**CuCernunnos**** : **Your comment made me laugh. (In a positive way that is.) I did think about getting a Beta he only problem is that at the moment I have internet like every two weeks for a few hours. This will be just for the next half a year I guess, but it makes it a little too complicated to contact a Beta before updating. I'm really sorry about that and my stories will most likely still be full of faults for now, but I promise I'll get myself one once I have a constant link to the internet. I'm still very thankful for your advice, though! So, Thank you very much!

**PhantomMouse1115**** : **Well, I updated.^^ Here's the new chapter, hope you'll enjoy it!

**inuyashaxkagome321**** : **Ah, Thank you! And there it goes….

**eru-iggy-is**** :** Yeah, I really hope I'll be able to continue it, too. Hehe….I'm just scared that I will lose my inspiration or something. But I'll try to finish it. ^^

A big thank you again! This chapter was really difficult for me and I know it's full of faults, but forgive me – I tried!

I guess it got a little longer than the last one.^^

I apologize if the characters are a little ooc, especially Paulina and Danny. But I just can't imagine them behaving the **exactly** some way hey had when they were 14…

Of course I'm not making them completely different either…I hope.

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Over the years**

'_This day really sucks._' Paulina concluded, as she nearly ran into some geek who just stood there, staring. '_First Star tells me I'm short of a date, then Lance bugs me about my English grades and now some loser decides to play obstacle, too!_'

Reaching her locker the girl started fumbling around with it, trying to get her combination right. She really should have taken a shorter one, after all what use was a difficult combination anyway? Those school-lockers weren't really safe, everyone could open them with a little force.

'_On top of that, I don't really have anything worth stealing in it anyway._' She thought, as she finally opened it and got a good look at the nearly empty interior.

She had disregarded her 'Phantom shrine' a long time ago. Seeing the lone mirror and he few pictures of herself with various friend made her a little bit sad, though. It wasn't that she didn't admire him anymore, quite the contrary actually.

In the last years Phantom had gotten famous all over the world and by now the majority agreed hat he was a hero. Only a few, like the Fentons, where still death-set on the theory of him being a villain and seriously believed that he just tried to lull them into a fake sense of security before crushing them.

'_Not that this theory makes any sense whatsoever._' She thought. '_It's not like he needs to protect us to the point of risking his li- eh afterlife, if all he wanted was our destruction. That's kinda contra productive after all._'

When fan-clubs had been founded all over the world and Paulina had felt as if she had just created a new trend. After all she **was** the founder of Amity's and thus the world's first Phantom-fanclub.

The good mood that seemed to sick to her like glue back then, had quickly dissipated after she realized the real gravity of the new Phantom-hive.

Ever since her mother died when she was little, her father had treated her like a princess. Naturally that had brought her to believe that one day she would also get her own prince. It had been more than just a simple dream, she had always been sure that one day the perfect guy would appear before her, falling in love with her at first sight.

But having grown up in a wealthy environment and being part of the A-list had left her with very high standards. It was a shame hat no boy ever seemed to meet them, but the espanian girl had patiently waited for him.

With Phantom's appearance it had seemed as if the waiting had finally paid off. He had been perfect for her. Strong, good-looking, mysterious and brave enough to risk everything for others. Not even once had she considered the option that he may not be interested in her.

It had been on the gathering of the US' Phantom fan-clubs. People from all over the place came together for three days to share their opinions and ideas with fellow members.

Paulina had been looking forward to this event for months, especially since she held a special position as Amity's speakers-person. Completely enjoying the whole event she had been happy to meet so many other club-members who shared her wishes and believes. At least until she noticed that a lot of he girls shared her wishes a little too much.

That was the moment she realized, that she wasn't the only one who believed Phantom to be the prince of her dreams.

At first this didn't really bother her, but slowly a thought had begun to drill its way into a head. There was no reason for Phantom to choose her out of all his admirers.

At first that idea had had something amusingly absurd to it but soon she started noticing certain things. Those 'certain things' mostly being other girls. And she noticed that the things she had always thought would attract Phantom to her weren't so special after all.

There were girls who were just as pretty, as rich and as devoted to him as her. This realization had hid her pretty hard back then and for the first time in her life she had felt truly insignificant.

After coming home from the event she had locked herself in her room for three days straight, only coming out to eat or go to the bathroom. She didn't really know the reason herself, but it had felt so much worse to come to a realization on her own than to be told. Every time she had been called swallow or unimportant she hadn't even bothered thinking about it. But this, this had been different.

She had felt devastated at first but soon this feeling hade disappeared, making room for another one: anger.

She couldn't believe how stupid and delusional she had always been. What exactly had made her believe that she was so special anyway? That Phantom would fall in love with her?

The ghost had barely talked to her and never more than necessary. That pretty much included the usual 'Are you alright?' and the occasional 'You can let go now…please?'. He had treated her like he did everyone else. Not as something special.

Her frustration with herself had gotten so strong, that once she was back in school she had emptied her locker of all things Phantom-related. Not even her room got spared and was soon rid of a lot of things recently deemed 'pointless'. However she hadn't been able to bring herself to throwing away everything and now a little shoe-box under her bed held the few items which she hadn't wanted to separate from after all.

Paulina threw her locker closed with a little more force than necessary.

* * *

Danny adjusted his hoody and stopped his bag from sliding of off his shoulder. He and Tucker were currently walking home from school and the techno-geek had started talking about his beloved new PDA, Laurene. Danny had long since sopped wondering about his friend obsession, even if he was still slightly worried about the naming part.

He had actually tried to listen for the first few minutes, but had soon given up. It made him feel slightly stupid to realize, that he hardly understood half of the things his best friend said.

The teen raised his head to look into the sky. It was summer; the school year would be over soon enough and he weather was good. There were barely any clouds in the sky and the sun burned down mercilessly.

It was in moments like these that he was overly thankful for his ice powers. He could always easily cool himself down by using them on himself, in small doses of course, and thus didn't have to suffer in the heath like others. In the last two summers this ability had more or less proven to be his salvation, since he had become quite attached to wearing sweaters. Preferable a few numbers too large and hooded**.**

Tucker had called him paranoid and the teen secretly admitted that there might be some truth in that statement. But he also knew that it as better to be safe than sorry and didn't want to risk people noticing the unbelievable similarity between Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom.

`_It's already a wonder that no one notices the pun.´_

Whereas it had been rather simple for people to overlook any resemblance between the two, it nowadays took Danny some effort to keep it that way. He was seventeen now and his face had naturally gotten more defined over the years. Sometimes the raven wondered how someone could _not_ see that he and Phantom were each other's carbon copies with the only difference being the reversed colouring.

But while his facial features certainly proved troublesome the thing that bothered him the most was his body.

Over the course of the last three years he had grown quite a lot and now stood around six feet tall. His built, too had made a change. He now no longer was scrawny but had gotten quite muscular. Not overly so, he as still slim and everything but bulky, but his constant ghost-fighting had left it marks.

He always wondered how he was supposed to explain why exactly he had a perfectly well trained body, when he apparently never did any sports except in school. And there he had only proven to be born with two left feet.

Danny scowled at the thought of school.

Certain things never changed and one of those things was Dash Baxter. Ever since he entered high school the star-quaterback and most popular boy in school had decided that making fun of Danny was a perfectly fine past-time. It was worst in sports.

Purposely 'forgetting' his sportswear and having to participate in his baggy clothes was already bad enough in Danny's opinion, but it was outright mortifying to stumble or drop things just too keep up the impression of being clumsy.

And to add insult to injury Dash Baxter, who oh-so-happened to be in the same PE class, did his humanly best to constantly remind Danny of his mishaps.

The quarterback was grading on the half-ghost's nerves quite a lot lately. Being his personal punching-bag he often had to resist the urge to throw an ecto-blast into his face. Throwing him into the ghost-zone or letting him be chased around by an angry Cujo seemed like good options too.

The jock hadn't gotten any more creative with his insults and still preferably called him 'Fentoni', or any other weird form of his name for that matter. Since Danny didn't really fit into his locker anymore Dash had gone over to locking him into the broom closet and was still trying to figure out how the raven always got out of it so quickly.

'_At least I managed to stay out of his way this _week' the teen thought, grinning proudly. '_But then again, seeing that it's only Tuesday it doesn't seem like much…_'

Turning to Tucker, the teen saw his friend still talking animatedly. Danny had to smile faintly, it was nice to see that some things never changed. Some part of him wondered if Sam was still the same as well but he quickly dismissed the thought - no use pondering things like that right now.

At arriving at Tucker's house Danny stopped walking and looked at the other teen. "Guess I'll be going then" he said "I still have to finish that extra home work from Lancer and I guess he'll kick my ass if I forget it again."

Tucker nodded. "Yeah dude, he really is out for your head lately. Wanna come over to play some videogames later? I got the new addition to 'doom'."

"I wished I could" Danny answered, "But I have to go on patrol this evening and do some chores in the house, my parents have been angry with me ever since I missed my curfew again."

"Oh, that sucks. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?" Tucker said sympathy in his voice.

The afro-American was well aware of his best friend's situation at home and thus knew that the Fentons' relationship to heir son had gotten quite strained over the years.

"Sure see you tomorrow!" the teen answered and waved a small goodbye as he turned and left into the direction of '_FentonWorks'_.

* * *

Maddie put down the tea-trail on the small coffee tableand sat on the couch next to her husband. She was feeling a little edgy while she listened to Jack's loud voice booming through he room.

Vladimir Masters sat in the armchair across from her. He had come to visit them one hour ago and Jack had promptly invited him to stay for dinner.

"And then I used the Fenton bazooka to shoot that ghost child right out of the sky! It was his very own fault for being so careless and ignoring me to focus on that weird other ghost! That will teach him not to underestimate Jack Fenton!" he declared, raising one of his fists in a victorious fashion.

Maddie sighed, relieved that the story had finally reached its end. Maybe _now _they could have a somewhat civilised conversation where someone besides her husband would get a chance to speak. Once it came to ghosts he was unstoppable and could talk on and on or hours. Whether the others even listened or not was a minor detail that could be ignored.

"It's just too bad that he still escaped" he said, deflating slightly "I don't know how he always does it but when I went to take a look at the place where he had fallen, he was gone..."

Now it was Maddie's turn and she knew it. If she wanted he right turn, she would have to give it the push herself.

"Don't worry Jack, dear" she told him in a soothing voice "You will get him sooner or later." She turned to Vlad, the billionaire had obviously fallen into a state of half-sleep during Jack's rant and looked up rather startled when she addressed him.

""Sorry, Vlad, I don't want to sound impolite or something, but…" she hesitated "Is here any special reason why you visited? You said, you wanted to talk to us and I was wondering I was about something important, since I'm sure it must be difficult for someone like you to find time or things like visiting old acquaintances."

The white haired man looked at Maddie intently before a small smile edged itself unto his face. "Perspective as always my dear." he praised "I indeed came to discuss a rather important matter."

"Oh?" Jack piped up "I get it! It has to do something with ghosts! You re being terrorized by one aren't you? Is it the Wisconsin-ghost? It is, isn't it?! "

"Ah, no. It doesn't have to do with ghosts." At this words the ghost hunter's face fell and he didn't notice the slightly annoyed look that Vlad shot his way.

"I actually wanted to talk about Daniel. I suspect he is still making trouble?"

"Well…yes." Maddie admitted, eyes downcast.

It was a touchy subject with the woman, one she would rather not think about. In the last years their son had become a bit of a problem child. He constantly missed his curfew, his grades were bad and teachers would call them just to tell them that he had skipped classes again. And no matter what they tried, they didn't seem to reach him.

The worst was that they had no idea what was wrong with him. The teen barely talked about himself anymore and when they asked him what made him come home late again, he wouldn't say anything at all.

Maddie was very sad that Danny had become so distant, she had always wanted to have good relationship to her children. Most of all she was worried, though. She knew that Danny often lied to them, but she couldn't pinpoint about _what_. It was things like not telling the truth about where he had been or what he'd been up to.

On top of that her son had started to always wear those stupid oversized sweaters and she could barely recall the last time he had been swimming or anywhere else where he would have to put them off. It really frightened her to think that her little boy might have problems with his looks and was too embarrassed to show his body.

He even hid his face with hoods and hats! In Maddie's opinion that was ridiculous. The mother had always thought that her children were unbearable cute – both of them. And she knew that she wasn't the only one who thought so, either. If all those guys who were after her daughter were any indication, the vast majority had the same conception of beauty as her.

Sometimes she really wondered how I was even possible for Jazz to stay single…

But then she would remember all those times when Danny had scared away her suitors before they could even ask her out for a date.

Those memories were yet another thing that bothered her about her son. He normally seemed to be a nice, cute and a little bit clumsy boy, but then at some times he made a 180-degree turn and appeared rather mean and scary. Like at he time where he set that gorilla on the boy who came to pick up Jazz for prom. (And she still didn't know how he got it out of the zoo.)

One thing she did know however was that Danny deliberately tried to hide those characteristics of his. It was obvious in the way he often stopped himself from behaving too off once he noticed that someone was watching him. Maybe that was what scarred Mddie the most.

Not being able to tell, what was an act and what wasn't. Not even truly knowing her own son's character – a terrifying thought for her.

"We don't know what to do V-man." She suddenly heard Jack say. "He is rarely at home and even then he hides in his room. The last time we had a real conversation about ghosts was months ago! And you know how much he used to like them!"

"Sure he did…" Vlad drawled, sounding rather doubtful. "However, did you ever think about sending him to a counsellor?

"Yes." Maddie sighed. "But we don't think that that's a good idea. He had been to his school's therapist before but I think it made things worse instead of better."

"Oh, I see. I didn't know he had been to one before. Would you mind telling me when exactly that was?" he asked curiosity obvious in his voice.

"When he was in his freshman year." Jack piped in "Around the time when Jazzypants had her big motivation-speech."

"He seemed to distance himself from us ever since high school started." His wife added. "Paired with his lowering grades and the nervousness he often displayed back then, Jazz thought it was a good idea."

"Hm, maybe…" Vlad murmured, obviously deep in thought "Did you ever think about the possibility tha-"

He stopped himself mid-sentence as hey heard he front door open.

The three adult all turned towards the hallway where light footsteps could be heard and a few seconds later the subject of their conversation stood in the doorway to the living room, staring at them in surprise.

"Hello Daniel. It's nice to see you again." The billionaire greeted him with a big smile.

The boy in turn just replied by glaring at the man and stomping up the stairs. A door could be heard slamming shut rather loudly.

"Well, he appears to be a bit moody." Said Vlad, his tone light. He didn't seem faced by the teen's rude behaviour at all.

"Sorry for that, Vlad. I really don't know what has gotten into him _now_." Maddie apologized.

"No problem, dearest. But…as I wanted to say, did you ever consider that he had gotten under a bad influence? You told me his behaviour started changing after he started high school and I was wondering if the problem possibly lies there?"

"In school?" Jack asked confused "How that?"

"There are a lot of things that could cause sudden changes in a person." Vlad explained "Too much pressure, mobbing or being around the wrong people."

'_He has a point_' Maddie though. She had never really thought of it in that way, but now a lot of things seemed to make sense. If Danny's problems lay in school it shouldn't coma as a surprise hat his grades dropped. Mobbing, no matter how much this thought disgusted the woman, was a possibility too and would actually explain a lo of things.

'_For example his habit of hiding himself behind oversized clothes. Oh, I will make everyone who dares to insult my little, cute son regret it deeply._' She growled inwardly '_They should be happy that Jazz isn't here anymore, she had always been on the overprotective side_.'

An uneasy feeling spread through Maddie at the thought of her daughter. Jazmine had gone to the same school as Danny, what if she already knew more than she let on? The woman remembered more than one occasion where she had gotten the suspicion that the two of them were hiding something. And ever since Jazz left for college, her son's mood-swings had gotten even more apparent.

'_There are too many coincidences to ignore. Maybe Vlad is right_.'


	3. Living by

**Serial-Doodler****: **Thank you about the curfew thing! So embarrassing…. I corrected it as fast as possible! Yeah, Vlad is one crazed up fruitloop^^ Sorry, though he won't appear in this chap.

**Kixen:**Thank you, I'm trying to pull it off without him still crushing on her, or her suddenly falling for him for no reason…I don't like those. So I hope you will like the way the story continues^^ And a big thanx for the curfew-thing to you too!

**Trinity Fenton-Phantom**: Thank you^^ About Jack and Maddie – they will be involved in the story since this will also focus around the lifes of Danny and Paulina and not just the romance-stuff^^

**CuCernunnos:** Gee, thanks to you too! You reviews are so long and that somehow always makes me happy, expecially since you give advice and such!^^ I sadly still don't have time for a Beta but I asked my best friend (who, unlike me, is a naïve speaker ) to proofread it, I hope that helps a little. I'm happy you approve of my character development. This chapter won't have so much of it in it and might seem a bit tight lipped on certain subjects (Val), but I will write it all out properly later in the story.^^

To all my readers : Thank you, too!

Kay…next chapter done.

Hope you'll like it this one. It got around 4.000 words and is most likely the longest until now, even if not by much.

But I gotta apologize there's no Danny – Paulina interaction in here either…

* * *

**Chapter 3 - Living by**

Angrily, Danny threw his school bag into the corner next to his bed.

`_This stupid, arrogant fruitloop! What is that jerk planning now!? _the teen thought enraged, letting himself fall on his mattress and glaring at the ceiling.

A lot of painted, fluorescence stars happily twinkled back. `_Damn…_`

Not wanting anything even remotely happy to run his grumpy mood the boy rolled over, continuing his inner rant with his face now pressed into his pillow.Just getting fired up, it took him a good ten more minutes of mentally insulting the older hybrid until he had calmed down again. Or at least enough to try to think about the situation at hand. Here was one question which he now needed to find an answer to. `_What __**is**__ he planning?`_

It was out of question after all that the billionaire was planning_ something._ Surely the man didn't truly visit just to see the Fentons, he would only do that if it wasn't beneficial for him in some sort of way. If not logic alone, past experiences definitely told Danny this. Until now it had always ended up with Phantom getting into another fight with some malicious ghost, his parents grounding him and a lot of property damage.

_`He was talking to mom and dad. I wonder what he is telling them…`_

Leaving his parents alone with the evil man made the teen a little nervous. Not so much because he feared for their safety, though. He was quite sure that Vlad wouldn't pull anything at the moment – that wouldn't be his stile. What really bothered him was that his enemy was currently filling his parents heads with who-knows-what and a nagging feeling told him that this 'what' would have consequences for him in the future.

He shortly pondered if he should go ghost and listen in but quickly decided against it. It wouldn't do much good anyway.

While he might get valuable information, he wouldn't be able to stop Vlad from saying whatever he wanted to say and Danny wasn't so sure if he could keep his temper in check in case the man said something that would piss him off. Just the memory of Vlad sitting there, in his living-room, drinking tea with his parents, greeting him with this fake smile and acting as if he owned the house aggravated the teen. So much in fact that there was no telling what he would have done if not for his parents.

At the thought of his parents the teen groaned. He hadn't been exactly polite earlier and they would definitely want him to explain his behaviour. A small smile edged itself onto his face when Danny imagined himself telling them, that he only refused to greet the man because he had the feeling that his choice of words wouldn't have met their approval.

Lifting his face a little and placing his chin on his crossed arms he blankly stared at his headboard. He didn't really want to stay at home right now. Not while they were in the house. He didn't even know the reason himself but somehow he was nearly as angry with his parents as he was with Vlad. They might not be aware of it, but that didn't change the fact that they were trying to hunt down their own son on a weekly base while inviting in the other half ghost with open arms – literally even in case of Jack. Danny couldn't stand the sheer unfairness of the situation.

Sitting up abruptly, he started looking around for his cell-phone and - upon finding it on his nigh-stand - quickly dialled Tucker's number, waiting impatiently for the other to pick up.

After a few more rings a 'Yes' could finally be heard from the other end of the line.

"Tucker, it's me, Danny. Can we meet at Nasty Burger?"

'Eh? Danny? What's going on, calling me out of he blue and wanting to go to a fast food restaurant? And didn't you tell me about half an hour ago, that you didn't have time today,? You mentioned something about chores and - ' questioned the other teen, but got interrupted before he could even finish his last sentence.

"To hell with the chores!" Danny answered a little heated. He didn't feel like trying to get on his parents' good side anymore - not that it wouldn't be too little late anyway. "I just want to get out of the house. Dear 'Uncle Vlad' was so nice, as to grace us with his presence again and I have the sinking feeling that I'll try to blast his head of if I see him again anytime soon."

'Oh...ok.' was all the afro-American said. 'So, Nasty Burger…now?'

"Yeah, meet you there." The raven answered and cut the line before the other could even utter as single 'Bye'.

Danny didn't move for a few seconds, a little unsure if he should try to sneak out the normal way and risk getting seen by his parents, or just using his powers and possibly having to explain himself later.

Having come to a decision he stood up, fished his purse out of his schoolbag and changed into his ghost form. Making himself intangible and invisible he flew out of his room and took off in the direction of the local fast food restaurant.

* * *

Sighing contently, Paulina closed her eyes. The warm water around her swayed lightly as she sank a little lower in the bath-tub. She really loved to take a bath after coming home from school and it had become somewhat of a habit for her. The warmth always relaxed her and she preferably even added a few extras like foam, candles and a few decorative rose-pedals. Some time ago she had brought her CD-recorder with her so that she could hear some music but soon realized that she enjoyed the silence more.

It was like quality time with her own thoughts – she didn't want aural interruption.

Maybe now she could come to a conclusion as to what she should do about her lost date. It was a rather delicate matter for her, even if everyone already knew what happened. She definitely had to find a good replacement or her friends would never let her live it down. She had to try hard but at the same time could under no circumstances appear desperate to find someone – it would ruin her image.

'_So…a shooting is out of question, that seems so 'last hope' –like.'_

But it wasn't just about what her friends might think.

Another thing that bothered the hispanian girl was her father. He was the reason why she couldn't just pick some half decent guy and keep him from making a fool out of himself at the party, while later pretending she had found a great replacement.

For some reason her father always seemed slightly disappointed in her after such events. He had never said anything, but to Paulina it was obvious in the way he looked at her. While it truly bothered her, she had never asked him why. It would have hurt her pride badly if she couldn't even figure out that one on her own and she was scared to be even more of a disappointment.

The Sanchez were a small family. Actually just consisting out of two persons – Paulina and her father to be more precise. There were no other living relatives on her father's side, except some third degree aunt which neither of them knew and so she didn't count. Her mother had been an orphan and died when Paulina had barely been seven, thus leaving her husband to raise their daughter all on his own.

And in her opinion he had done a great job.

He had always listened to her problems and tried to cheer her up when she was down. Never once did he forget an important event like her cheerleading competitions, her birthday or graduation and he always had a gift for her too. One that she'd like at that.

As someone who got a rather good position in the business world the man had to work and travel a lot. So it was to be expected for her father to not have much time for her and to often leave her alone. She wouldn't have blamed him if that was the case, she knew that their high living status wasn't a given and that some things had to be sacrificed in order to keep it. Even if those things included the time they could spend together.

But somehow the man had managed to always be there for her when she needed him and she had barely been alone when she was younger. He had taken his job more lightly and put it behind her within his priorities. Now that Paulina was seventeen he spend more time away than before but was still available for her whenever she needed him.

So naturally, Paulina loved her father really much and disappointing him in any way wasn't something she was comfortable with. It actually made her feel rather useless.

'_He even put up with my whole Phantom-phase. I'm sure every other parent would have long since fled with all the nonsense I was sprouting back then.'_She thought, not sure if she should feel embarrassed or annoyed with herself at remembering all the things she had said back then.

Sinking a little lower until the waterline nearly reached her nose, she let out a frustrated sigh, watching the bubbles produced by this action. As they made there way upwards her mood was gradually going downwards. Realizing how much her father had done for her was somehow making her feel guilty.

While even being allowed to partake in events such as the upcoming party, she in turn just proved herself unable to find a guy that would meet not only hers but also her father's expectations.

'_It's impossible that there aren't any good boys out there! I'm just not trying hard enough…maybe I should widen my __focus and not only look at Casper High and the people I normally spend time with.'_

Her eyebrows slightly wrinkled, Paulina thought about the other possibilities. If she didn't know anyone who was good enough, she naturally had to look somewhere, where she didn't know anyone.

'_Maybe I should go for another university student?_'

It didn't seem like that bad of an idea to the hispanian girl. A business student for example wouldn't make a fool out of himself when trying to communicate with others and would surely behave more grown up than Paulina was used from her male friends. All that she had to do, was pick out the best looking guy from the next best university.

Well, it would certainly be awkward to ask a random person for a date but the girl was sure that she wouldn't have much trouble convincing whoever she may choose.

If there was one thing, she had picked up from all the times her father had talked to her about his job, it was the knowledge that in the business world connections were very valuable. They often made the difference in whether you got a deal or not. Having good connections meant having influence, which in turn meant having power. And being powerful in the business-world was what pretty much every normal student was trying to be one day. So in Paulina's opinion no one with an ounce of brain would turn down an offer to escort a pretty girl to a high-society party where a lot of wealthy, influential persons were going to be present.

'_Actually the lucky one who will be my date should better be thankful. Such an opportunity is more than rare and if used correctly can give one a hell of a head-start in life.'_ Paulina thought, a smug smile on her face. She really liked her new idea, to her it sounded so weird but still simple that it might even work.

Realizing that she had found a possible solution to her problem, she felt like a heavy weight had just been lifted from her chest. Maybe she wouldn't disappoint her father this time after all.

With this thought in mind the girl began to massage a hand full of her favourite mango flavoured shampoo in her hair, humming all the while and letting her mind drift to other things. She still had to do some other preparations for the upcoming event after all. Most importantly she had to go shopping, she couldn't wear one of her old dresses after all. Maybe she should ask Star if she had time this weekend, the blond didn't have half a bad taste after all. _'At least not in clothes, though her shoes are horrible…Seriously, where did she get the idea that green high-heels are stylish?'_

Just as Paulina was about to grab the showerhead and wash the foam out of her hair, she heard the phone in the hall ring. Feeling a pang of annoyance at that, the girl shortly debated whether she should go and pick it up or simply ignore it. But knowing that it could possibly be an important call for her father and with said person currently being in a meeting a few hundred miles away, she didn't feel like having much of a choice.

Slowly standing up and leaving the warmth of the water she looked around for her towel. At finding it on the floor right in front of her she quickly wrapped herself in it and left the room, shuddering slightly as a wave of cold air hit her after she had stepped outside.

Leaving water-puddles behind the girl quickly made her way over to the small table on which the phone was still ringing persistently. Dropping all over the gadget she picked it up, pressed the answer button and gave a polite greeting.

The voice on the other end of the phone was definitely not one belonging to a business partner of her father.

"Hi, Paulina, it's Star! We're all going to Nasty Burger together and since Dash got his dad's car and can drive us, we wondered if we should come and pick you up?"

Slightly dazed at how loud and shrill the blondes voice could sound when one wasn't expecting it, Paulina didn't answer at first, but soon her confusion and annoyance overcame the surprise. "Star?" The word was said calmly, but something in the espania's tone must have betrayed her true feelings because the "Yes?" that came as answer sounded a little bit hesitant.

"Would you bother telling me, why exactly you are calling me on my home's phone and not my cell-phone?"

"I tried!" replied Star slightly defensive, "But you wouldn't pick up and I thought that you're possibly in the bath again since you take it with you to everywhere but there."

Paulina berated herself inwardly for ever telling the blond that piece of information. But as she spoke again her voice had adapted a sickly sweet undertone, "So…I hope you don't mind me asking, but what was it, that gave you the impression, that I would like to be interrupted even though I _purposefully_ leave my cell in my room? I just don't seem to get it."

The line went silent for a few seconds and just when Paulina was about to wonder if there was a connection at all, Star suddenly piped up again. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I just thought, that you'd like to go to and well might be mad if we don't ask you and -" She suddenly stopped as if she had just said something wrong and then, with a calmer voice, asked "We are not getting you, are we?"

"You will pick me up in thirty seconds sharp, I'll be waiting outside." Came the curt reply from the Hispania, ending the conversation**.**. Even if the other girl had quickly changed subject, she wasn't so stupid as to not notice her slip. They had asked her to come along just because they where scared of her wrath, so much was clear to Paulina. For some reason it didn't bother her though, quite the contrary actually.

'_Fine with me.'_was all she could think.

It wasn't anything new to her anyway. Popularity meant eating popular kid's able, having style, being admired and making the rules. It meant doing things with the other's from the popular crowd. It did _not _being liked by everybody. Paulina knew this and had long since accepted it as a fact. There were always those who where jealous and hose who feared the influence of them. If she was feared it just proofed her position within the group, especially if it was by someone like Star.

'_She knows I could kick her __out of our group and no one would object. Popular is only who I declare to be so.'_

* * *

Nasty Burger was - as expected of the only fast-food restaurant in the city of Amity – full of people. All of the small table-booths were occupied by teenagers, chatting and munching away happily on their fries or burgers. The clerk at the counter looking slightly panicked at having so many customers and one to help him with the orders, the rather long line in front of the girl's toilet and the smell of junk food that hung over the whole place like smog above LA.

Danny was so used to all of it that he didn't even register those things anymore. Actually, it even had kind of a relaxing effect on him to be surrounded by so much normality.

"Shit, we will never find a place." Tucker cursed next to him. "It's always so crowded! I really wouldn't come here if it wasn't for the cheap meat."

"Stop complaining, she has break right now - so will definitely get places." Danny said and then as an afterthought added, "And you eat meat everywhere, never bothering about the prices."

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean I like wasting money!"

Moving over into the directions of the toilets the two of them just barely evaded several people, which were carrying around overloaded food-trails, and gave of the impression to just be walking around the place in order to stumble and drop the food on the next best person. Reaching the toilets the boys turned right instead of continuing their previous course and entering the 'males-section'. Instead entering a small hallway, which was partially hidden by a giant flower pot and its rather small palm, and heading towards a door at the end.

Just as Danny was about to knock a voice interrupted him. "Hey! This is a restricted area! Staff only!" Hand still in mid-air the raven turned around, seeing a boy with big glasses and wearing a Nasty Burger uniform, looking at them sternly. Or what he obviously deemed to be sternly, with his hands at his hips, frowning and shooting one of he most pathetic attempts at a glare the two teens had ever seen.

"You are new." Tucker simply stated and knocked at the door in Danny's place.

"Wah!" slightly taken aback the boy did seem unable to say anything for a moment, but soon gathered himself again. "I do not know what brought you to that conclusion and yes I am new, but as I said before, this area is restricted and only for staff members. Please take your leave."

Just as the afro-American teen turned around to retort, the door which they had been standing in front opened, revealing another worker of the restaurant. Only that this one was a girl and was wearing a different costume, marking her as the manager currently on duty.

"Who is-" she started, sounding annoyed, but then recognized the two ravens in front of her "Oh it's you two!"

"Hey, Val."

"Yo, Valerie."

"Ah, sorry!" the voice of the glasses-boy suddenly cried, suddenly sounding slightly panicked. "I tried to tell them to leave but they wouldn't listen! I apologize for my uselessness!"

"Nah, it's ok. They're with me and can come here whenever they want" the teal eyed girl said offhandedly with a wave of her hand, dismissing the subject. But at seeing the boy still standing there, looking slightly confused for a moment she quickly added, more forcefully his time "Don't you have anything to do? I have the impression, the guy at counter could need some help."

"Ah! Yes Miss Gray!" And with that the three teen were left standing in the hallway alone.

"Newby, huh?" Tucker inquired, receiving a nod. "He seemed quite scared of you already, though. What did you do to him?"

"Nothing but I guess he saw me practicing a few karate moves in my spare-time and ever since he freaks out whenever I'm around." The girl said, gesturing for them to come in and close the door. Following her invitation, they seated themselves on the chairs in the small, office-like room.

"Did those moves possibly involve smashing stone bars to dust – barehanded?" Tucker asked, a knowing smirk on his face. The girl didn't answer but a small blush shortly spread on her face.

"Anyway, what brings you here?" she questioned, turning around and looking at them with a serious expression

Tucker blinked at the random question. "Hunger?"

The girl raised an eyebrow, looking at Danny as if wanting his confirmation to that statement. "No ghosts involved. It's been quiet so far, we just didn't feel like getting ourselves squished to death out there. " he said, referring to the mass of people in the restaurant.

The blue eyed teen had to admit that Ghost-hunting had become fairly simpler since Valerie knew his secret. Her finding out about his secret hadn't been exactly voluntary on the half –ghost's side, but things had gotten a little complicated the moment the Red Huntress had gotten her hands on power-zapping weapons.

Being hit by one and turning into his human form right in front of the girl's eyes, had left him with little room to find a fitting explanation that did _not_ involve him being a half ghost.

So he had sticked to the truth, knowing that this day was bound to come anyway. Unnecessary to say, that the next weeks had been hell for the teen, seeing how the hunter was prone to holding grudges. But once they had talked about everything, things had started to look better. Teaming up they had become quite the effective team and working in shifts had left both with more time at their hands.

Of course Danny was taking most of the shifts, seeing that Val had a part-time job other than hunting and a strict father, but his workload had definitely decreased and he had even managed to raise his 3.0 average to at least a 2.8. Not much, but still better than nothing.

"Want me to fetch you some food?" Valerie suddenly asked. At receiving a hopeful glance from each boy, she smiled slightly. "What do you wan then?"

"For me a double meat burger - with extra meat, chicken wings and a cola. Oh, and one of those small menus with the toys, but without the salad!" Tucker exclaimed happily.

Nodding, Valerie turned to Danny expecting his order. Having opened his mouth to voice his wishes, it wasn't words, but a cold, blue mist that escaped.

"Aw, you gotta be kidding me!" he growled out annoyed. "What is it with ghosts and shitty timings?"

Standing up and turning into Phantom just as the first screams could be heard, he quickly gestured for Valerie to stay put, sure that he could handle whatever ghost there was by himself. Understanding his silent message the girl, who had already started to fumble around with her new belt, relaxed and simply sat down again.

Turning and flying through the wall Phantom left, ready to face whatever had decided to show up. He was still in a bad mood and so he assumed that whoever it was, might not want to show up again anytime soon after he was through with him.


	4. Appointment

Hi, I'm back! ^^ Sorry for the long wait, here is the next chapter of Perspective lives!

**Kixen**: Thank you for telling me about he mistakes, I am planning to correct them, even if it take me forever… I'm happy that you liked the last chapter.^^ Hope you'll like this one too!

**Kigyptnee**: I'm glad you like it, thanks for reviewing^^

**Iksghs**: Yup, I'm continuing and planning to finish this fiction one day. Thanx for the review!

**Trinity Fenton-Phantom**: Yeah and this chap is finally the foundation for Paulina's and Danny's interaction. Sorry that the real action takes me so long…hope you still like it^^

So, on we go…and a big 'Thank You' to all my readers and reviewers! ^^

…and an early apology for the many faults in his chap, my best friend, who normally proof-reads is on vacation….

* * *

Annoyed, Paulina blew away a few strands of her hair, only for them to be blown right back into her face by the wind coming from the open window of the car. She, alongside with Star and Kwan were currently sitting in a big, red Jeep, driving through the streets of Amity at a speed that seemed to constantly hover at least 20 mph above the actual speed-limit.

Huffing angrily after getting her hair blown back for the fifth time, Paulina gave her driver an nasty look. Ever since Dash was allowed to borrow his parents' car, the boy had found a liking to fast paces, completely ignoring everything around him as soon as he was seated and his belt fasted.

Seeing that her glare too went unnoticed, the Hispania soon dropped it and continued to stare out of the window – something she had been doing for the last ten minutes. She could already feel the beginnings of a headache nagging in the back of her head and was more than happy when she finally spotted their destination in the distance.

She wasn't so sure anymore if she shouldn't better just have home. Going out had seemed like a good idea after she had already been so rudely interrupted in her bath-time, but sitting in car which got maneuvered by Dash had definitely sunken her mood. She actually preferred not having to worry about if she will survive the next crossroad, or not getting her hair ruined because some stupid, blond jock decides opening the windows was better than wasting energy on the air-conditioner.

"Woah, careful!" Kwan, an Asian-looking guy and one of Dash's fellow teammates, exclaimed as the car made a sharp turn into the parking lot and nearly collided with another one.

"Are you trying to kill us? Damn, slow down for once, it's a wonder you didn't lose your license already!" Added Star, who at first had given a surprised squeak when they suddenly jolted to a stop.

" Nothing happened, alright?" The blonde boy answered, raising his hand in a defending posture and looking slightly offended "I had everything under control, you don't need to overreact like this!"

" 'Under control?' " Star scoffed "To me it looked more like you nearly ruined your parents' car and us alongside with it. You are such a horrible show-off."

"I'm not a show-off! I know what I'm doing, right Paulina?"

Dash had apparently hoped to find an ally in the dark haired girl, since she was the only one who hadn't contributed anything to the conversation yet – which also meant no insults. Having looked back in order to talk to the two people occupying his backseats he hadn't gotten a good look at the girl next to him at first. But upon not receiving an answer he turned to her, frowning.

"Paulina, I asked y-" his frown deepened at seeing the unresponsive girl sitting in her seat, staring out of the window blankly. "Paulina?" he tried again waving one of his hands in front of her. "Hey, are you in shock or something?" the boy asked warily when he wasn't given any sign of his presents being acknowledged. He vaguely remembered having heard something about people going in shock in school and how important it was to try and get them out of it. Or was it the other way around and trying to wake them up was a bad idea?

'_Whatever, it doesn't matter. I couldn't poss__ibly have her sitting in the car the whole day long anyway…'_

Carefully pocking her in her upper-arm the jock waited for her to look at him, or snap out of it, or something in that direction. But to his annoyance the Hispanic just continued staring out of the window, her gaze fixed at some point in the distance.

"Um, Dash? Is everything alright with her?" Star's slightly troubled voice came from behind him.

"Dunno…" he answered, shrugging lightly before turning his focus back to the problem next to him. Maybe he should try it again? He raised his hand and poked her a second time, this time with more force leaving her skin slightly redder where he had made contact.

"Ouch, damn! Stop nagging me! What do you want?" the girl suddenly hissed at him, whirling her head around to glare at him.

Dash, who had jolted back at the teal-eyed girls outburst, was rather confused at the hostile tone and it took him some seconds to reply. "Eh…getting you out of shock? "

"I wasn't in shock, idiot!" Paulina angrily retorted. It always made her angry to be treated like some weak, scared child just because he was more _feminine_ than others. Seriously, what did that guy think she was? Some pussy who freaked out at something as insignificant as a nearly-car-crash? That was something to be expected wih the blonde's driving stile and on top of that was she living in the world's ghost-capital for Pete's sake! One would think she was used to worse with all the ghost-attacks going on – she had been hold hostage twice already and had barely avoided being hit by flying debris from a fight more times than she could count.

If she was a person to go into shock so simply she would have long since be dead.

"You don't need to snap at me! How should I know that you were alright, when you didn't answer and all you were doing was staring out of the window?" Dash shot back.

"Of course I would stare when there is a – " the Hispanic suddenly stopped mid-sentence and glanced back to whatever she had been watching before. This time Dash and the other two, who had just silently followed the other teen's quarrel until now, followed her gaze.

Clearly visible from the car was the number-one meeting-place of Amity's youngsters, the Nasty Burger, with it's big neon-sign and the countless glass-windows. Only that most of those windows were broken - hundreds of little glass-shard now littering the floor. The sign was just being held by a few electric cables and looked to be about to crash down any moment. The place looked mostly deserted, only a few last people quickly making their way away from the restaurant.

"Let's get out of here." Star's nervous voice suddenly interrupted the silence that had spread among them at the sight. "Yeah, we better." Kwan agreed, nudging the other jock's shoulder. "Come on, start the car." Dash just nodded and turned the key, the engine roaring to live at once.

"No, wait." Paulina said. "Take a closer look, there is no sign of a ghost being around. What if it's already over?"

Wrinkling her eyebrows Star leaned towards her window, observing the place more closely. "She's right. Looks like whoever did this is already gone… Maybe Phantom or the Huntress showed up?"

"You think so? Hey maybe they are still here?" Dash piped up at the blonde girl's word. His voice and facial expression betraying his excitement.

"God Dash, do you even realize that you sound like some fan-girl?" Star asked him disgusted "Sometimes I think you're even worse than Paulina."

"Would you two just stop it? And please leave me out of this, Star." Said girl demanded before adding. "Do you think we should go and take a look? It's so quiet and don't ghosts normally make a big show out of themselves?"

"But what for? Even if there is no danger anymore, we don't have any reason to stay. I doubt that we can just walk in, order something and relax at the next best table. And even if, I don't feel like eating there when everything is in ruins, do you? " Star asked.

"Paulina was most likely just hoping to meet Phantom" Dash claimed, turning to star with a grin "She's _way _worse than me."

"Shut up, Dash!"

"See, she's blushing – I was right!"

"Shut up, at least I'm not running around in Phantom-underwear!"

"Paulina calm d- he is _what?_"

"Not to mention the-"

"Aren't that Fenton, Gray and Foley?"

At the last words the three teens turned to Kwan, a little surprised at his sudden input. The asian boy, seemingly not bothered by his own randomness just pointed over to the half-destroyed building, in front of which three figures where visibly standing now.

"It's really them - our famous new loser trio." Star certified quickly. And at making eye-contact with Paulina she added with an amused undertone lining her voice, "One would notice them anywhere don't ya think?"

The Hispanic had to grin at that, it was no secret to her what her female friend thought about the other teens' styles. They had been debating over it for hours….well more like gossiping, but still. Both of them could never even begin to fathom how it was possible for the techno-geek to run round with his ugly red beret and still pretend to have _some_ sense for fashion. Or Fenton with his oversized sweaters which he even wore in the middle of summer! Didn't that guy sweat?

For Paulina the duo's clothing had always been another and actually unnecessary proof, that both of the boys were exactly where they belonged – at the very bottom of the social ladder.

The only one who didn't seem wanting to fit into the typical 'losers dress horribly' – cliché was Valerie. Paulina had never liked that girl. Sure, she had been part of the popular crowd once, but even then they haven't been what one would call fiends exactly. Valerie had always had this air of authority around her, which was all but shouting 'mess with me and you _will_ regret it' and even if the Hispanic would never admit it openly she had always seen the girl as some kind of rival in terms of popularity.

Normally other girls, like Star, always hovered near Paulina trying to get on good terms with her. They all knew that all they could never have the same position in the group and behaved accordingly. Only Valerie Gray had never done that. She had taken her own place in the group, acting as if it was only natural for her to be there and not giving a damn about others, or more specifically _her_.

With her good looks, perfect grades and a father in a high and well paying position at one of Amity's most important companies the afro-American girl was soon categorized as dangerous. So when the girl's father had lost his job a few years back, Paulina hadn't hesitated to use this opportunity to her advantage and banished her from their group.

She could still remember how much fun it had been to see the once popular girl suddenly associating herself with none other than their school's biggest freaks. Even back then, Fenton and Foley had been the biggest losers one could possibly imagine.

'_Except that Goth of course, but she had played in a league of her own.__ No wonder her parents shipped her off to some boarding school, with her behavior and clothing she seriously needed some help. Then again, I still think she's actually stuck in jail for one of her riots and the whole boarding school thing is just a cover…'_

Suppressing a giggle at remembering the look on said Goth's face, at the question, which school she would attend in the future, she gave another short glance at the three losers in front of the fast-food restaurant.

They seemed to be arguing now. About _what_, Paulina couldn't tell, but from the way Valerie was gesturing at the debris covering her surroundings, she guessed that it was over the buildings condition. Her theory got confirmed, when the last strings holding the huge sign, which had 'Nasty Burger' written across it in huge letters, finally snapped under the weight. Paulina couldn't help flinching when she saw the sign slowly starting it's descent, before fully getting captured by gravity's pull and speeding up in it's fall before until it hit the floor with a loud crash.

Valerie had just watched the whole thing rather unimpressed, even when the construction met the ground not even two meters to her left. She stared at it for another few seconds before slowly turning to her two companions, who backed up at seeing the murderous look now marring her face. It wasn't long before the girl started yelling insults at them, so loud, that it wouldn't come as a surprise, if her voice was carried far enough to reach the whole neighborhood. The two boys started backing up once Valerie tried to close the distance between them, obviously hoping to keep a security distance to the furious girl.

It was moments like these, when the Hispanic girl wondered if a loser's mind really worked different than a normal person's.

"Wow, she's creepy." Star remarked from behind her, obviously having seen the three's interactions. "I wonder if she'll actually try to kill them - it wouldn't be a loss if she succeeded…"

"And what _I_ wonder is, what it was, that got her so angry at them." Paulina added.

"It looks like she's mad because of the destruction – understandable when taking into consideration that she is one of the managers." Kwan voiced his own thoughts. "But I don't understand why she's angry at Fenton and Foley, it's not like it's their fault…"

"Or maybe it is. We didn't see a ghost, remember? What if Fentonia made something explode in the kitchen? I bet he's enough of a freak to actually make sauce explode and now Valerie will have his head for this." Dash said with a satisfied grin. "Since we are talking about Grey, she might even take 'having his head' literally, I wouldn't put it past her."

"If we are lucky." The blonde girl of the group agreed with a sight, now sounding rather bored and taping her fingers against her knee. "Anyway, do we have to stand here? We can't get any food here, so why don't we leave? I have better things to do than waste my time in this car."

Paulina nodded her head in agreement, she too would prefer to have some action and since it seemed like they had already missed the_ real_ action, there was no point I hanging around the place any longer just to look at the aftermath.

It didn't take much to convince Dash to get the car moving again and the group soon sped down the streets towards the city's mall.

Sometimes he wondered why he was still going to school at all.

* * *

Getting up early after a few hours of sleep, just to spend half the day confined in a building, getting annoyed by teachers, homework and fellow students. Sometimes he didn't understand his own reasons for doing so.

School was supposed to be a place of education, a place where young where supposed to broaden their knowledge, learn how to socialize with others and get a first guiding for their future and on their way to adulthood. For Danny it was none of these.

He had long since stopped caring about his performance in class. There was no use in pretending, that he was a hard working student like his sister - or one that did any school-work at all for that matter – when it was so painfully obvious that he didn't even grasp half of the things they covered in class. It was already a wonder that he managed to pass most of his tests, even if his grades where everything but astonishing. He was actually quite proud that he was able to maintain and even slightly raise his average over the last three years, but unsurprisingly others didn't share his feelings.

With his teachers having long since deemed him a 'lost cause', a stubborn teenage boy who simply refused to learn, it was impossible to get on their good sides anymore. At first they had all tried to lecture him on the importance of a good education and how there was more to life than hanging around with friends and playing video games. They had said that, one day, when he was older, he would understand and regret not having given his best in school.

He had wanted to tell them, that staying alive was higher up on his priority list right now than getting high scores and that he would already be content if he simply survived high school. But he never did, since he had the sinking feeling that this wouldn't bode well with his teachers and it would only end in another talk with his parents. He already had enough of those for constantly skipping or nodding of in class.

So in the end, he didn't have choice but to ignore all the good advices. Pity.

The same went for his social life, it was rather pitiful. To put it simple: he had none. He was still one of Casper high's biggest losers, only that he didn't mind it anymore. It was simpler to keep a low profile if you already had an image, especially if it was the one of a shy, weak, untalented and cowardly boy who slacked of in school and wore oversized clothes, making him look even scrawnier than he already was. People only saw what they wanted to see and little slip ups - he had randomly appeared and disappeared at the oddest places thousands of times and no one ever bothered asking about it- went by unnoticed most of the time.

All things considered school was nothing but a waste of time for Danny. He didn't plan on following an academic career anyway. The only thing that had ever truly interested him was becoming an astronaut, but in order to be even accepted in a training program he would need to do it like his sister and ace all his tests. Sadly that was something he would have most likely been incapable of even if he had the time to study.

Thus in times like these, when Danny was making his way through the masses of students blocking his path, trying not to get shoved in a wall, that he truly wondered _what exactly_ it was that made him come back to this hell-hole everyday. Maybe it was out of habit, maybe out of a sense of responsibility and pride, or maybe he just didn't want to disappoint his parents.

Maybe he was simply a masochist…

* * *

"You look beat." Tucker stated as Danny plopped down in his usual seat next to his friend.

"Aren't we observant today?" Danny replied unnerved, not needing to be reminded. He knew that he didn't look his best from the short glance, which he had sparred his reflection in the mirror this morning.

Having been out and about fighting ghosts for the longest part of the night, he had gotten into bed around four in the morning. Seeing that this was the second night in a row, three hours of sleep were more than insufficient when one spent most of his free time in physical combat. The heavy bags under his eyes just underlined what his whole posture was all but screaming. He needed sleep. A lot.

"Damn Val for making me take another nigh-shift." The raven grumbled more to himself than anyone else but his friend still heard him

"You know, you got lucky. I mean you, like, destroyed the Nasty Burger. You should be happy that she didn't pull a Skulker on you and try to skin you or something."

Sending the other boy a short glare, Danny just huffed and crossed his arms over his chest watching their math-teacher enter the classroom and place his suitcase on his table. "I thought we had gone through this already? It was an accident."

"Really? Could have fooled me" the dark skinned boy retorted, pulling out his PDA. "I mean, seriously, you destroyed half the interior and the windows with that wail of yours. And not to forget the sign, which is now nothing more than a big heap of trash."

"Please! How the hell is that my fault?" the blue eyed teen began rather loudly, earning himself a displeased frown from their teacher. Not really caring about the rebuke, he only lowered his voice in order to prevent the rest of the class from listening in. "I case you haven't notice – he flew into the fucking sign. And just for information, if I had really wailed, more than a few windows would have been broken."

"Is hat so?" Tucker said raising one eyebrow and hitting his little device's buttons feverishly. "In case _you_ haven't noticed, he didn't fly into it - not on his own anyway. You threw him, along with a few ecto-blasts. And the only reason why you didn't pull of a full-scale ghostly wail is because Valerie used one of her guns to snap you out of it. Remember?"

"Uh well…maybe I shouldn't have thrown him…but it was still an accident. I thought he would go intangible."

"The wail?"

"He started it. He annoyed me!" Yes, Danny knew that one was lame, but it was the truth and he didn't know what else to say.

"Danny…it was the _box ghost_…he annoys _everybody. _And he certainly doesn't qualify for wail-worthy on the power-scale." The green eyed teen gave his friend an odd stare for a moment, before sighing and looking back to his PDA. "You were cranky. You _wanted_ to make the fight messy. I mean, come on, you can't tell me that you couldn't capture the box ghost without making a scene. He got stronger, yes, but he is still useless. Can you really blame Val for getting mad at you after you ruined her workplace in a temper tantrum?"

"Do you have to call it that? It makes me sound like some five years old. I was just pissed because of Vlad." Danny mumbled annoyed. He might lose his temper sometimes, but he certainly did not have temper tantrums.

"It doesn't matter what you call it. If you behave like a five years old, might as well be called one." Looking up at the blackboard, Tucker seemed to study their current math-problem for a moment and quickly scribbled down something on a pad. When he continued his voice had a more serious note o it. "It's not just Vlad, Danny. Yesterday you might have been angry because of his visit, but even on normal days you are cranky. You have gotten simple to irritate, you have mood-swings and your logic is off."

The blue eyed teen rolled his eyes, god he just hoped Tucker wouldn't pick up that annoying habit of trying to psychoanalyze him from Jazz. He already got that enough on the phone when his sister decided to call them, which was nearly every day. On top of that was he quite aware how simple it was to tick him off lately. But, hey, he had a lot of stress being in charge of the town's safety and everything.

"Thank you Tuck, what would do without you? You are so very helpful, pointing out the obvious."

"Yeah I know" the other teen grinned back "So, do you want to hear my conclusion?"

"Conclusion?"

"You are either in puberty or pregnant."

"…Shut up." was Danny's only answer. Looking back to the front of the room, he too studied the blackboard shortly. It didn't take long for him to realize that he hadn't the slightest clue how to solve the problem and that their teacher's words weren't making much sense to him either.

Deciding that the best course of action would be to take a short nap to catch up on all the sleepless hours at nigh the blue eyed teen crossed his arms on his table and laid his head down. It was not like he would miss anything significant anyway and if he did Tucker was sure to tell him later.

* * *

Groggily lifting his head Danny had to blink a few times to clear his vision. All around him people were packing up their stuff, leaving to get to their next lessons. He yawned loudly, ignoring the few weir stares he received for this action.

Tucker was leaning at his table, still engrossed with his beloved electronic and not even sparing the other teen a glance as he stood up.

"I really don't get why they always let you sleep in class." The dark skinned teen said as they started walking out of the room next to each other.

Danny just shrugged his shoulders, knowing the question was half-rhetorical. They always wondered how simple it was to openly break rules without getting punished. It's like everyone just gave up after a certain number of failed attempts to get them to behave right. It wasn't just his little nap-sessions or his friend's addiction to his PDA, there were other occurrences like these, too. Like when someone was always late, ate during the lesson or drew pictures instead of taking notes. With the right endurance and stubbornness those people forced others to get used to them and accept their actions.

Entering their classroom the two of them quickly seated themselves. Stifling another yawn, Danny pulled his books out of his bag and put them on his desk. He was still very tired, seemed like his previous nap wasn't sufficient.

"Good morning class!" Lancer's booming voice suddenly burst his little mind bubble, in which he had just been mentally preparing himself for another forty-five minutes in dreamland. The English teacher was standing at the front sweeping the class with sharp eyes.

"Today we're going to continue from where we stopped last time - Shakespeare." At this a few groans could be heard, but if Lancer heard them, he did a brilliant job at ignoring them and simply continuing what seemed to grow into a full fledged speech. "William Shakespeare, who was born 1564 in the small town Stratford-upon-Avon is one of the…."

The rest of the sentence was already lost to Danny, the teenager could feel himself losing concentration rather quickly. Some part of him wondered why it was, that they were going over Shakespeare again. He was nearly certain that they had covered hat theme before – several times. Sure he knew, that the dude was important and that he had written a lot of famous stuff, but seriously, why going on and on about the same topic over and over again?

"…rious works like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth or Othello. These are all falling into the category of 'Tragedies', while others like the Merchant of Venice or Midsummer Night's Dream are….."

Dreaming sounded about right now, Danny figured, as he closed his eyes and slowly drifted of. Only to be rudely shaken awake not even a minute later

"Dude, don't fall asleep now." Tucker's voice reached his ears and he turned to his left to get a better few of his friend. The boy seemed to be looking for something in his bag. Not only him actually, most of the class was either rummaging through their schoolbags or looking for something in their folders. It was then that Danny also noticed that Lancer had stopped talking and was now going through the rows of tables, collecting papers from his students. He must have been out of it for more than a minute it seems.

"Tucker?" the raven simply questioned looking at his friend rather helplessly, not knowing what to do. The other boy obviously understood the unasked question and simply answered "Homework."

Suddenly feeling a lot more awake, Danny practically heard the alarm bells ringing in his head. At remembering the appointment the class had been given in their last lesson, only one word came to his mind. _'Shit!'_

The teen squirmed in his seat as his English teacher came closer to his table. "Dude?" Tucker's voice came from his left. The techno-obsessed boy had noticed his friend's nervousness and could already guess what was wrong. "Don't tell me you forgot your homework again?" he asked. He only received silence as an answer, but it didn't need words for Tucker to understand that he had been right.

As another thing came to the dark skinned boy's mind, he continued "What about the extra work Lancer gave you because you never did your homework?" The other teen visibly flinched at his question and started to fumble around with he hem of his sweater. _'Bulls-eye, eh?'_

"Study in Scarlet!" Lancer, who was by now holding a rather huge stack of papers in his hands and only two seats away from Danny, suddenly exclaimed. "Miss Sanchez, are you trying to tell me you forgot your homework over a shopping trip? Even after I pointed out to you that your performance in this next few weeks will be judged by me and determines if you fail this class or not? I am greatly disappointed."

Paulina's face had turned slightly red at hearing the man practically announcing her bad grades to the whole class, both out of anger and embarrassment. But she didn't argue with the man and instead just silently cursed under her breath in Spanish.

Danny, who had watched the whole scene unfold could only gulp, as his balding teacher finally reached him. The man raised one of his eyebrows at the nervous teen in front of him. "Your homework, Mister Fenton?"

"I, uh...forgot?" the teen answered warily. He could have sworn that a few of the veins visible on the English teacher's head had just sprung into existence at the same time that his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"You _forgot_?" he asked in an eerie calm tone.

"Yes." It was the truth after all. He still remembered throwing his bag away as soon as he entered his room. Back then all thoughts of school had been banished from his mind because of the older hybrid's present. The younger half-ghost had spent his day mostly avoiding going home by doing things with is best friend and had stayed at Foleys' until late at night, playing video games. When he had returned home his parents were already in bed and just as expected Vlad had long since left. But even then, school was the last of his worries, seeing that Valerie had given him her nightshift and he had to go patrolling the city.

"So, I guess that me personally having reminded you just yesterday was not enough? And of course you didn't do the extra work either, I suppose?" Lancer's voice interrupted his thoughts.

The teen didn't answer and just shrugged his shoulders. He expected to be openly scold him like he had done it with Paulina, but to his surprise the man turned and addressed the rest of his class.

"You can all leave now, break starts in two minutes anyway. I want you all to make your own short-biographies on Shakespeare until next lesson and to look up on some background information concerning his poems." He announced and when the students got into motion he added "Except for Miss Sanchez, of course. I wish to speak to you, so stay here for a little longer. Same for Mister Fenton, of course."

Sighing the blue eyed teen looked to Tucker, who had already packed and was now standing at his table, waiting for him. Gesturing the boy to leave with a wave of his hand, Danny saw the hesitation in the other's eyes. "Go, or else there will be no meat left once you reach the cafeteria. Reserve as seat for me or something, this won't take too long."

Tucker gave him a sympathetic look but followed his friend's wishes and left. The room was devoid of all students except for Danny and Paulina now.

Both were a little confused when their teacher turned towards them with a face that didn't only show anger and annoyance, but also something akin to sadness. "I really don't now what to do with the two of you anymore" he said, his voice betraying just how tired he was of everything. "Miss Sanchez, you think that by having good grades in some of your courses, you can completely ignore the others. But school is supposed to teach you in more then just some specific field and especially English is important. I will not tolerate your ignorance for this subject."

Paulina just frowned at his words and glared at the wall, obviously feeling slightly insulted. Having finished with the Hispanic girl for now, Lancer turned towards Danny and his face hardened somewhat.

"And you Mister Fenton. I think it is futile to even try to talk some sense into you, taking into account that not only me, but also various others, including other teachers and even your own parents, have attempted to do so for the last few years. I really don't understand what makes you think that you can skip school and disregard your tasks. I am sick of having to run after you for every little thing. That goes for both of you."

The man straightened his shoulders, trying to take on a more imposing figure. It didn't really work, but it was clear that whatever he had to say was serious.

"I'll make it simple. The two of you get one change at passing this class. Since you are too stubborn to work in the lessons and I don't have the nerve to continuously admonish the two of you anymore, you will hold presentations. It will be due in exactly three weeks. I hope you understand that I expect excellent work if you wish to pass."

"What?" Paulina exclaimed shocked. She still had to find someone to replace her lost date and aside from that her cheerleader training already took up a big part of her free time. "But that would take forever and I don't have much time in the next weeks! I have a private life, too in case you haven't noticed."

Danny just rolled his eyes at he girl's outburst. He was actually quite happy with the man's idea. Tucker would surely help him if he asked and maybe even Jazz would give him her aid, once he explained the situation to her. She knew that he had other responsibilities after all.

"Trust me Miss Sanchez, I noticed that much" came their teacher's dry reply. "After all you always seem to forget everything else because of your so called private life. And that brings me to the subject of your presentations, or should I say presentation?"

"What?" Paulina asked shocked. That guy wasn't suggesting what she thought he was, right?

"The two of you will work together in this project. And trust me when I say that there is no avoiding it, since you will tell the class something about each others respective lives. After all, if they always seem to get in the way of school, why not let school take part in them? Just tell us what each others life is like, you don't even have to do research with having the perfect source of information as a working partner. Plus, I think this will solve your little problem with forgetting things, after all now you can remind each other. "

When Lancer stopped talking and looked at the two teens with some satisfaction in his face, obviously pleased with his own idea, all they could do was gape. Suddenly the whole thing didn't sound half as appealing to Danny anymore. Quite the contrary, actually.


	5. Sorting out

Hey… I'm back from the deaths….Sorry that it took me so long to update again!

I know that it isn't right to let you guys wait so long (months!) and I'm not even going to try to talk myself out of this one. I think if one puts a story on this side he is kind of obligated to keep updating it regularly if possible or at least tell the readers if that is not possible.

So again: Sorry and thanks for all the reviews I still got

To the reviews:

**DBack47: Uh**, well, returned…sorry for taking so long (again). I know what you mean with never being satisfied with one's own work…Thank you for your review, though it was really cute^^ I hope I can keep everyone in character and yet make this thing work, but it sure won't be simple especially with Dan and Paulina…So I hope you'll like this chapter^^

**KIxen: **Thanks for the review and also a big sorry to you for letting you wait this long^^

**TheLeander:** Guess what: still no romance.^^ I'm trying to make this a bit more realistic and slow so I guess the romance has to wait a bit longer. Yeah Sam's parents are snobs…but trust me Sam isn't so easily swayed in her believes and will certainly appear sooner or later, too.^^

**Trinity Fenton-Phantom:**Yeah, here's the update even if it's not 'soon'. Sadly not much is happening in this one, but I'll get started on the action soon^^

**WingsOfMorphius:** I know you! Oo Well, not you, but a few of your stories! Gee, you're reading this? *hidesbehindcouch* That's kind of like meeting a famous person…eh, whatever! Yeah DxP stories are rare and since I like unique pairings I decided to write on too. And about them getting along…that's definitely still a long way off…

**Super Sister: **Yep, doomed indeed…hehehe…

A big thank you to all the reviewers and on we go!

* * *

**Perspective lifes chapter 5**

**Sorting out**

"Sooo…what was your problem again?" Tucker asked his best friend, one eyebrow raised in question.

"You know full well what my problem is." came the slightly annoyed reply of said friend, also known as Danny Fenton, local ghost boy and self-proclaimed protector of Amity Park.

"Yeah, you get to pass English even thought you slept or skipped most of your lessons and all you have to do is hanging around Paulina, who happened to be one of the hottest girls in school." Tucker retorted sarcastically "I can totally see your problem."

Danny only rewarded his friend with a glare. Sometimes he really wondered how Tucker could be so dense and oblivious to some things while being a genius when it came to technology or finding cynical remarks to most of the more peculiar predicaments that they sometimes found themselves into. But as soon as a pretty girl was involved -or girls in general- he tended to get a bit of a one-track mind.

"Danny, really" the techno-geek suddenly spoke up again, having noticed the other's silence. "You should be happy that Lancer gave you this change."

"That's not the point, Tuck!" argued the raven haired boy. "The problem is that I'll have Paulina snooping around in my life. How am I supposed to feel about the possibility of her finding out something? And even if she doesn't, I don't exactly have the time or nerves to put up with _Paulina_ of all people."

He had lowered his voice during his rant, seeing that they were still on the school grounds occupying one of the benches on the outside. All around them people were eating, playing games and chatting away happily, making the possibility of someone overhearing their conversation rather low, but Danny didn't like taking changes.

Tucker just rolled his eyes at that, feeling that his friend's paranoia had kicked in again. They weren't even saying anything revealing and if no one ever noticed a thing about Danny before, they sure as hell weren't going to start now.

And being the good friend he was, Tucker Foley decided that it was time for the other to understand exactly that. "You know, Danny" he started "I think the one missing the point here is _you_." Graciously ignoring the snort that had followed his previous comment he continued his little speech.

"You said it yourself - '_Paulina of all people'_ . l mean, come on, she's popular, hot and not exactly the brightest. When everyone has been completely oblivious to your little 'hobby' or your alter ego until now, do you really think that she is gonna find out?"

"Not everyone was oblivious, Jazz found out." Danny pointed out "And Paulina did pick up on the fact that Phantom always seems to be appearing when I'm around, remember?"

Tucker just cast him a disbelieving look "Dude, you aren't seriously comparing Paulina to your sister, are you? Jazz is a freaking genius and also just so happened to live with you. It was only a matter of time until she noticed. And Paulina only ever figured any kind of connection between you and Phantom because her beloved ghost boy was all she could think of at that time."

"Well, that's not exactly a good thing. Her fixation on my alter ego, I mean." Danny said rather worriedly. He knew of the girl's obsession with his night-persona, even if it seemed like she had finally grown out of the worst if the lack of anything Phantom-related in her locker was any indication.

"Actually it is." The dark skinned boy replied "In her mind Phantom is the perfect guy, right? Brave, strong, mysterious and whatnot. She is putting him on some kind of pedestal and that's actually gonna work to your benefit. She would never be able to imagine that scrawny, shy, unpopular Danny Fenton was actually the hero she had been admiring for so long. People tend to see what they want to see after all. "

"You are hereby banned from talking to my sister for the next weeks. Her habit of over-analyzing is rubbing off on you." Danny said half-jokingly, but also being half-serious. He really didn't need another Jazz. He really loved his sister, but her overbearing ways could get on his nerves quite easily and he definitely didn't need Tucker taking her place now that she was in college and not snooping into his business all the time.

Then again she had still always managed to soothe his worries with her understanding yet logical attitude. And the raven haired boy was a bit surprised that Trucker's word really had made him feel better. Maybe he was really becoming paranoid as his friend liked to point out to him every so often. Even his parents thought that he was being jumpy and in case of his father that really meant something.

He sighed as he heard the school bell ring. Standing up he cast Tucker a small grin. "You know, maybe you're right. It's not likely for my secret to get blown just because I have to spend a bit time around our ever-popular school diva. If I'm lucky I'm finishing my part of the presentation after a few hours with her anyway, it's not like there is much to say about her."

"You got that right man. And if you're smart you will just focus your work on what's going on in her head – that would be the quickest theme to cover." Tucker grinned back.

"Sound like a good idea to me." Danny approved, before scrunching his face up in a look of fake worry "Then again I'm not sure if my mind would cope too well with the task of understanding Paulina. I actually treasure my sanity, or at least what's left of it."

* * *

For the last few hours Paulina couldn't stop wondering what exactly she had ever done to Lancer to deserve this kind of punishment. She couldn't recall ever having involved anything even remotely bad enough. Sure, she had occasionally forgotten her homework and she had also more than once commented on the guy's physical shape, but still, who didn't?

And that stupid English teacher even had the galls to act as if the whole thing was some brilliant idea on his part. She could definitely use a good grade, but that didn't mean she wanted to go along with the guys stupid ideas. Sadly, though, she hadn't yet figured out what to do in order to get out of it.

The thought of complaining to her father had crossed her mind for a second, right after she had left the classroom. But as soon as it had come it was gone again. It was even possibly that her papa would have carved in under one of her pleading looks and gone straight to Ms. Ishiyama, the headmistress. They were donating enough money to the school every year for her to actually do Mr. Sanchez a favor and getting his daughter out of the project that she was forced to participate in.

Only that Paulina would feel very guilty. Surely her father would be more than disappointed in her. Pleading him for new clothes, electronics or a raise in pocket money was one thing, but making him sort out her mess was something completely different. She knew that school was her responsibility and she was going to handle her problems herself.

Which sadly brought her back to her current situation. '_Stuck with the school's biggest freak...and not even allowed to run.'_

The girl scowled at the thought. This was the most infuriating part of the whole thing. There were over 1200 students at the school and she got stuck with creep number one. Just another prove of Lancer's unfairness in her opinion. After all, she might not have been a picture student, but she could even compare to Danny Fenton when it came to slacking off.

She didn't know why the guy seemed so insistent on making all his teachers hate him, but he sure as hell succeeded. He had a habit of skipping classes, often deciding to leave in the middle of a lesson without so much as an explanation and coming back a lot later- if he didn't decide to stay away altogether. And even when he was actually attending for once, he spend the majority of the time asleep or staring into space.

In a way it was a little weird that a guy like Fenton had the guts to do those things.

No one really knew all that much about him, since that he only hang around the techno- geek and Valerie and never talked much with anyone, but it was officially known that Fenton was a whimp and Dash's favorite punching bag.

Oh, she still remembered him asking her out in their freshman year a couple of times, but even those memories were vague, there were tons of guys who had done the same after all.

She just wondered if there had ever been any other interaction between them as the loud roar of an engine suddenly pulled her out of her thoughts. A big Jeep pulled up in front of her and the window on her side was pulled down.

"Ey, Paulina!" a familiar voice called out "You need a ride?"

The Hispanic girl resisted the urge to roll her eyes and just responded "Thanks, but no thanks, Dash. I'm already content with my last near-death experience in your car."

"Stop exaggerating" the jock retorted annoyed. He really didn't like it when people criticized his driving abilities. "You want a ride or not?"

"No, Star is gonna pick me up." Paulina responded. She was currently standing in front of the school having been released not even ten minutes earlier. Dash shrugged his shoulders at that.

"Kay, see you around then." He said simply. And just like that he sped off again, forcing a few younger kids who were just about to cross the street to jump back a bit in order to avoid getting run over.

It only took Star two more minutes to arrive. Her car was a shiny little convertible with only two seats in the front. It was blue with white seats and Star had gotten it from her parents to her sixteenth birthday.

"Sorry for the wait."

Paulina sighed and got onto the passenger-seat. She didn't feel like stirring up a conversation right now, so she just nodded in acknowledgement to the other girl's apology.

The sun was glaring down on them and they were both grateful for the wind that blew in their faces while speeding down the streets to Paulina's mansion. As soon as they arrived they quickly bit their goodbyes, mostly because both of them were exhausted from school and just wanted to relax at their respective homes.

The dark haired girl gave a content sight upon entering through the door, at least they had a cooling system and the air was refreshing. It's not that she didn't like the summertime but all the heat was bad for her skin and her hair felt like straw. She was just contemplating taking one of her beloved baths when she noticed the briefcase. It was standing right next to the small table in their entrance hall, on which she normally threw her keys.

The teen quickly made her way over to the kitchen, and upon finding it empty, continued on to the living-room which was connected to it by a pair of heavy double doors.

There on one of the big sofas she found what she was looking for. "Papá!" she exclaimed "You're back already?"

The man looked up from where he was sitting. He had the same eyes as his daughter and was rather tall. Putting down the newspaper he had been reading at the small table in front of him he smiled at his daughter. "Hello little princess, how are you doing?"

"Fine" Paulina responded seating herself in a nearby armchair. "How was the conference? I didn't know that you'd be back so early!" Well actually she hadn't known when he'd be back at all, but she figured he would be gone for a bit longer.

"Yes, the whole thing turned out to be over quite quickly. And for how it went…to be frank, I was bored to death." The teen had to smile at that. Even thought her father was a successful businessman he never took his job too serious, making it actually possible for her to find some of the stories he told her about his work really interesting.

"The usual, eh?" She remarked.

"Well, there was this one guy from Florida, quite young and seemed to be a bit clumsy. He managed to trip at least three times and once he poured out his cup of coffee over the projector and they had to fetch a few technicians to repair the thing." The man explained, smiling slightly at the memory. "But enough of me, there really isn't much to tell. What have you been doing while I was gone? Did anything of importance happen_?"_

'_Yeah, I got dumped by Star's cousin, which means I have no date for the upcoming party. That and my crazy English teacher is forcing me to get to know the person on the very bottom of our social ladder or he's not gonna let me pass.'_

The girl twirled one of her long black locks around her finger while thinking about how she could rephrase those particular thoughts to make them more _presentable_.

"Well, remember me telling you that I already knew whom to take with me to the party in two weeks?"she started "Turns out he's not going."

She had tried to be nonchalant about it, maybe then her father wouldn't notice how much this bothered her. Obviously her strategy failed, though, seeing as the other seemed suddenly really interested in what she had to say."Don't worry thought! I already found someone else!" She quickly assured. She felt bad about lying, but that was still better than having her papa think that she was couldn't even find a guy.

"Did you?" Mr. Sanchez asked and Paulina was sure she had heard a bit of disappointment in his voice. Did he know that she was lying? _'Okay, time for changing the subject.'_

"Aside from that, I got this stupid assignment in English." She said, letting her tone get slightly annoyed. "And I have to work together with _Danny Fenton_." She added, pulling a face at the name.

"Fenton? Hm…sounds familiar…" her father mused "Is he one of your friends?"

"Ugh, no way!" Paulina exclaimed positively disgusted.

The older Sanchez just raised an eyebrow at his daughter's reaction. Something told him that it would not be a good idea to ask her what exactly was so 'ugh' about the notion of them being befriended. But who ever said that parents were smart?

"Is there any particular reason for your obvious dislike for this boy?"

The look he received as response to his question quickly made him regret ever asking. It was one of those you-are-not-seriously-asking-that-now-are-you? kind of looks that only teenager seemed to be able to use in all its perfection. Yup, he regretted asking, alright.

* * *

He ducked and rolled himself to the side before getting up and quickly positioning himself in a fighting stance again. The other person followed his example and got into a stance of her own. They looked at each other for a few seconds, sweat running down both of their faces, breathing hard with their hair sticking to their faces.

His only warning was the girl's eyes narrowing before she leapt into action again. He avoided a right hook and had to duck yet again as she attempted to kick his head of off his shoulders. This time however he didn't roll away and instead turned on his heal, grabbed her leg and used it to throw her over his shoulder. The girl gave a surprised gasp at that but still somehow managed to land on her feet, crouching on the grass.

"Hey, Val, let's call it quits for today." Danny called out to the girl "We've been at it for two hours."

Getting up from her position on the lawn, Valerie readjusted her ponytail and nodded. They were both currently in her garden in one of their weekly spars. Damien, her father, had supplied them with drinks not too long ago and the two of them sat down on at the small table on the veranda.

Danny downed two glasses of lemonade before speaking up again. "You know, that left hook of yours nearly broke my yaw."

The dark skinned girl just shrugged in response "Not like you wouldn't have deserved it."

"Still angry at me for what happened yesterday?"he asked.

She snorted "Of course. My boss was bitching about it for hours and asked me why I hadn't done anything to stop it from being destroyed. I felt like talking to a grade-schooler, trying to explain him that there is nothing I could possibly do to stop a rampaging ghost."

"Has he ever been to Amity?" Danny asked, one eyebrow raised. It was highly uncommon for people here to expect others to be able to avert property damage done by ghost.

"No he's sitting somewhere in Miami" she retorted angrily "His only problem is most likely what sunglasses look better on him."

"But they didn't fire you."

"Of course not. Even they know how difficult it is to get good staff in this area."

"That or he's scared of you. You can be quite intimidating when angry, you know" Danny grinned "I should know."

"He better be" Valerie said threatenly "If he ever decides to stop by in Amity, I'll make personally sure he'll know what it's like to be stuck in a quarrel between two ghosts."

The raven haired boy gave a slight smile, before standing up and stretching, letting a few of his joints pop. He winced, his body hurt like hell and he was covered in bruises and scratches. Valerie didn't look much better. The two of them looked like they had just been run over by a mop of angry elephants. Their baggy training-clothes were dirty and he was sure that they both could use a shower.

They had pars for nearly two years now, thought, so both of them were used to it. At the beginning it had been more or less Valerie training Danny, who might have known how to fight with ghost powers, but was still rather inexperienced in hand to hand combat. Needless to say she had wiped the floor with him back then.

Their usual rules were no ghost powers and no weapons, but sometimes they tried out using staffs or other things like chains and short knifes, since those were the things one could possibly improvise the best at their usual battle-scenes. A broken pipe could quickly become a staff and glass splinters were no different to use than the knifes. The never seriously tried to hurt each other with those, though and go normally got injured worse when fighting without weapons.

"Who's on duty today?" The boy asked. He had done the three last nightshifts, so their usual routine was a bit out of balance.

"You, I'm going out at night." Valerie answered. They had divided their work in day and nightshifts. The day-shift normally went from 9am to 9pm and the night shift from 9pm until the next dayshift started. Quite simple, but sometimes they had to run two shifts in a row, or else one would always go out at night and the other at day.

"Finally a good night's sleep." Danny said obviously satisfied with the thought "I've been dozing off in school way too much lately."

"Too bad you can't turn off that ghost-sense of yours, you'd surely sleep even better if you didn't wake up every time a ghost appeared" Valerie unnecessarily reminded him.

He just stuck his tongue out at her. When she had first found out about his ghost sense she had found it unfair that he had such an advantage in ghost fighting, especially since he had it had a wider range than her equipment and could be used to feel out the enemy's position as well. But soon it had become obvious to her that it was sometimes more of hindrance than anything and she loved pointing this out to him.

"Well, I better get going if I want to take a shower before the next ghost pops up." The blue eyed boy said.

"Yeah, you stink" his partner pointed pout bluntly.

"So do you." he shot back "And did no one ever tell you that it was rude to tell a person such a thing to the face?"

"Says the guy who hits girls" she countered, giving her battered form a once over.

He snorted. Valerie could hit harder than pretty much every other person that ever beat him up and that included half of Casper High's football-team.

He picked up his bag and put on his usual sweater that he had thrown over one of the chairs since he preferred training in only his T-shirts. It wasn't like anyone could see them anyway, after all the Grey's garden was surrounded by a high hedge, shielding it from view.

"Bye Val, see you in school tomorrow" he said.

"Yeah and try not to get another bothersome appointment" Valerie warned him. Danny had also told her about his little partner-work with Paulina and she had to admit that she didn't see things as sunny Tucker did. Paulina might seem like she hadn't much going on in her head, but her manipulative nature made Valerie wonder about thatNot that she was about to tell Danny this since she was sure he worried enough already

"I'll try" he responded and turned ghost. Levitating a few feet above the ground he gave her a last wave before flying of, turning invisible as he neared the more populated areas of Amity. Maybe he'd have to deal with Paulina tomorrow, but today he sure as hell didn't want to think about this anymore.

* * *

Woah, done!

I hope I can update more regularly from now on since I finally got a new laptop. (shredded my first one…)

I hope you liked the chappy. I think it's a bit shorter than the prior one, but I don't think I'm gonna write ones that are much shorter than this one.

I already have the planning down for the next one and it seems like Danny and Paulina finally have a real interaction. I even thought about putting it in here, but it wouldn't have fit. Unbelievable that I wrote six chapters without them even having something close to a decent conversation. ..-_-

C YA! DraconAshara


	6. Building Problems

I'm back^^

Hey, everyone! I think this chapter is a little longer than the last one - nearly 5.000 words. Yay! (Well, there are authors who manage 30.000 on a weekly basis, but I'm just not one of those super-human beings and already happy with what I have...)

So on you go!^^ Hope you like it.

Reviews:

**Holospartoi258:** That's not nit-picking! I like it - that you are giving me you honest opinion I mean. I'm still a wannabe-writer (I love that word…) and pretty aware of this. I said I would welcome constructive critics with open arm soo...*spreading arms wide* Ok, I feel stupid now…but enough of my nonsense.^^ You said my characterization is a little off and I agree with you. It's far more difficult to keep everyone in character than I thought, so sorry about that - I'm trying but not sure I'll manage. About Danny, I have to admit I was pretty shocked. I can totally see where you're coming from. It would be plain illogical for him to have become even shyer over the years, especially since his development in canon is going in the opposite direction. Fact is, I didn't want to make him 'shy'. I'm trying to picture him as someone who just doesn't care about other people accepting him anymore, but also of someone that is pretty annoyed by everyone and has slight problems with his arrogance. Now, reading your comment I just noticed how he could easily be mistaken as shy, though. So thank you for pointing this out to me!^^ And about Sam…I pretty much threw her out to make this whole story easier. She would never let Danny and Paulina get close if she was around and I would also have to find a reasonable reason why she isn't Danny's girlfriend yet. But I also think it would explain Danny's distaste for the A-listers a bit. I felt like he would adopt a more Sam-like black-white few if she was gone and that was important. But, don't worry, Sam isn't gone forever^^ After all, soon are holidays… Ugh, look at the length of my comment! I talk too much! Thank you for reviewing again^^ I'll try to get better with characterization^^ Tschü!

**theLeander:** Hi^^ Glad you like it so far^^ Soo…I updated again and I hope you like the new chappie too^^ Thank you for the review!

**Biisayowaq: **Sorry for the long wait^^ Hope you like it! Have fun reading and thanx for the commi!

**Lani's Tamer-chi:** I'm happy you like it even if you don't like the pairing^^ Thank you for commenting

**Kixen:** I seem to go into hibernation a lot, huh…-_- I'm happy that you can see improvement in it^^ I'm doing this partially because I want to get a better writer after all, so thank you^^

* * *

**Perspective lifes chapter 6**

**Building Problems**

Humming a little to herself, Maddie turned the pancakes she was currently making. Seeing that they would be ready in a few moments, she got a few plates out of the cupboard above the sink and put them on the table. After every plate was accompanied by a glass, fork and knife, the woman put the pancakes all on a big plate and positioned it in the middle of the table along with a bottle of syrup.

Maddie sighed, now to the more difficult part -getting her family to the table.

Jazz had never been much of a problem and all Maddie had to do was knock on her door once. Since the younger redhead was an early riser, she would be down on her own in a couple of minutes. Too bad that Jazz was in college already and not living at home anymore. The rest of her family was not nearly as compliant as Jazz had been.

Walking up the stairs, Maddie's first stop was her own room, where Jack was still sleeping blissfully.

Upon entering she couldn't help giggling slightly at the way her husband looked. Curled up on his side, a plush-toy in his arms and snoring loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood."Jack, dear?" she said, shaking him slightly "It's time for breakfast." The man didn't react and just continued sleeping blissfully. Maddie sighed and shook him harder, before telling him again, louder this time, that it was time to get up. The only response she got was her husband frowning in his sleep, mumbling something about spooks and turning around to face the other side of the bed.

The woman gave a tired sigh; he didn't leave her much of a choice. She grabbed the ends of his blanked and pulled it away with one, swift motion. Jack, having lost his comforting warmth, soon started shivering and tossing around on the bed, before finally waking up for good.

"Mads" he whined upon seeing his wife standing at the end of his bed, obviously being the cause for his uncomfortable awakening. "Why did you do that? I'm cold!" he asked her, shooting the blanked in her hands a longing look.

"Sorry, dear." Maddie replied calmly, already used to his behavior "But it's time for breakfast and I didn't think you would want to miss it. I made pancakes."

The man's eyes lit up at that. "Really?" he asked happily "What about fudge?"

The red headed woman sighed at this question, having to resist the urge to roll her eyes "No, we don't have fudge."

"Oh…" the man visibly deflated at her words, but brightened up again after a few seconds. "I like pancakes, too though! And syrup! We do have syrup, right? " he added, looking at her with narrowed eyes.

"Yes, I just bought a new bottle, so don't worry. Now, Jack, would you please get ready? We should eat soon if we want Danny to make it to school on time."

"Ok, Mads! I'll be there in a second!" he exclaimed and jumped out of the bed, apparently full of energy.

Maddie just smiled slightly at her husband's antics, before leaving him alone to get dressed properly. Closing the door behind her, she made her way to the last room on the small hallway. Danny's room.

Her son was always somewhat of a wildcard in the morning. Dealing with him was a game of chance.

One could never know whether he would react to someone pounding on his door or not. It was very possible that she would be standing there for minutes without getting a response. She could only really come up with three possible reasons for that:

A) Danny was just as an heavy sleeper as his father

B) He was purposefully ignoring her

Or C) He wasn't even home

Maddie's personal favorite had always been A, though she would also be content if it happened to be the second option. Sure, it would have been horribly rude and she definitely wouldn't approve of such behavior, but she could easily blame it on puberty. Teenagers were naturally moody after all.

And to Maddie everything seemed better than the last option.

Truthfully, at first she hadn't even contemplated all this. Two years ago she had simply assumed that her son was one of those boys who wouldn't even stir in their sleep if a bomb detonated right next to their bed. But Danny had changed so much in the last few years that she felt like she didn't even know him anymore. She couldn't even check up on him properly either. His door was always locked and she couldn't get into his room without having to open it forcefully. There was no way she could justify such an action in front of her son, or even herself for that matter.

Shaking her head, Maddie pushed those thoughts aside. Now wasn't the time for such things, she had to wake Danny and get him down for breakfast.

"Danny?" she called knocking on his door "Danny, are you up yet?"

She didn't get a response but she could have sworn she had just heard a few sheets shuffle on the other side of the door, so she tried again. "You won't be able to eat if you don't get up now! Can you hear me, Danny?" This time there came an unmistakable groan from the other side of the door. "Yeah, yeah…" came the tired and somewhat annoyed sounding reply through the door, before more shuffling could be heard and the sound of something heave falling on the floor.

'_Well, at least I can be sure that he's awake now._' Maddie thought upon hearing what sounded like muffled curses from the room.

Breakfast was mostly spent in silence. _Mostly_ - since Jack was, as usual, continuously talking about his newest ideas on ghost hunting gear. All Maddie could do was to listen politely and nodding from time to time , since she knew that once her husband started talking, nothing she would say could truly reach him. She would however glance to her right from time to time, where her son was quietly eating his pancakes.

It was already his third helping and the woman couldn't help but wonder where all of it was going. Danny was eating nearly as much as his father and while it was rather…obvious that Jack liked to eat a lot, Danny was miraculously just as skinny as he had always been. Sometimes Maddie couldn't help but to marvel at the wonders of puberty.

It wasn't just his eating habits, but also the fact that he had grown at least two heads taller in the last year and lately his voice would suddenly drop a few octaves in the middle of a sentence, causing him to speak in a deep baritone.

With Jazz the changes had been slow and steady and not all at once, but with Danny things seemed to change overnight. _'Most likely because he's a boy, they mature differently than girls after all.' _

Maddie watched Danny's fork nearly missing his mouth. The boy blinked at it, confused, and apparently not finding an explanation for his fork's weird behavior just continued eating. But from time to time he would just stop and stare at his plate for a few moments or raising his glass without actually drinking.

The woman didn't know if she should laugh or be worried about his actions. To her it was painfully obvious that he didn't get enough sleep at night and while this bothered her, she couldn't help but think that her son's drowsiness was kind of cute. In such moments he was just so similar to the younger Danny from her memories.

A few minutes later the black haired boy stood up, putting his empty plate in the sink and picking up his school bag from the floor. "Gotta go, I promised Tuck to meet up with him." He said and pulled his hoody over his head. "Bye, mom, dad."

"Wait a second!" Maddie automatically called out upon seeing his last action. Danny turned around again, looking at her questioningly. She hesitated a moment, before continuing. "Today is supposed to become the warmest day of the week, do you really think you will need…that?" She asked, giving his sweater a look.

She knew that this was a touchy subject with him and she quickly regretted starting on it when she saw her son's posture change. The boys shoulders became stiff and his eyes seemed to grow a bit colder."Yes" he answered simply, his tone not leaving any room for discussion.

The redhead sighed. _'Great, now he's angry again….'_

"Well, then at least remember to drink a lot. You don't want to get a heatstroke now, do you? "she advised him good natured and a little worried. _'He's really pushing it after all…'_

"Yeah, sure." Danny responded rather uncaring, but upon hearing the worry in his mother's voice, his shoulders had lost a good part of their stiffness and he didn't sound quite as defensive anymore. "Is that all? I really gotta go, you know?"

"Yes that's all. You can leave, we wouldn't want you to be late after all." She answered. Watching her son say a last good-bye, before leaving for school, she couldn't help the small frown that appeared on her face, though.

"Come on, Mads! Don't look so down!" Her husband's enthusiastic voice suddenly sounded from her left. "He'll surely be fine! You shouldn't worry so much, he's a Fenton and Fentons are always alright."

He grinned at her and Maddie could feel a slight smile tugging at her lips. This was exactly why she loved that big klutz that was her husband. Even if he sometimes seemed to be slow on the uptake, he always knew when she needed some cheering up. And with his unshakeable optimism he normally managed that rather well.

But even so, she couldn't help wondering if there wasn't possibly a deeper reason for her son's behavior. Involuntary her thoughts drifted back to something Vlad had said in their conversation two days ago.

"_You told me his behavior started changing after he started high school and I was wondering if the problem possibly lies there?"_

_

* * *

_

Star gave her friend an appalled look. "Seriously?"

Paulina, who had turned sideways in her chair, so to make it simpler to talk to the girl sitting at the table behind her, just rolled her eyes. "You think would be kidding about something like that?"

"Uh, no…" Star said. She still couldn't believe what the Hispanic girl had just told her. Paulina Sanchez, most popular girl in school and captain of the cheerleader-squad was all but forced to socialize with Danny Fenton, loser extraordinaire. In a way it was quite hilarious actually and Star felt a little satisfied that for once Paulina also got her fair share of bad luck. Not that she would ever say that aloud, she treasured her place among the popular kids, thank you very much.

"So, you're going along with it?" she asked the girl in front of her, after all Paulina was known for worming her way out of uncomfortable situation and it wouldn't surprise the blond girl if she already had an exact plan on how to skip this 'assignment'.

To her surprised though, the other just sighed annoyed "Yeah, I don't have much of a choice."

"So what will you do?" Star questioned, her interest raised at what that could possibly mean. "Are you just going to let him tag along with us?"

At that Paulina made a face. "I already thought about that. There is just no way I'm going to let that loser use this to spend some time with other A-listers, he might start thinking he actually belongs to our group or something and he'll try sticking to us!"

"Ewww…" Star commented, the comment making her think of leeches - those slimy little creatures that also stuck to people. "That would be gross, I wouldn't want him around! But what else are you gonna do? I thought Lancer wanted you to get to know him?"

"No, not really…He just said he wants us to talk about the other's life. I guess I can just ask him a few questions and get over with it."

"You think that's going to be enough? This will decide if you pass or not after all…"

"So what? I just have to ask enough questions to be able to make the whole thing somewhat presentable and longer than five minutes."

"You're most likely right, it's not like Lancer would want proof that the two of you spend time together or something." Star agreed reluctantly. " It's just if this is so imp-"

The rest of what the blond girl had to say was already lost to the Latina since she was too focused on the other's previous words. '_Proof?_' she her mind echoed worriedly.

Could that actually really happen? Was she expected to proof Mr. Lancer that she had actually tagged along with Fenton, going to his house, meetings his friends and whatnot just to get a better insight of him and his life. Her English teacher hadn't said anything about this, so even if he did want her to present some kind of evidence to him she couldn't have known.

´_Ugh, this is stupid!´ _she exclaimed mentally. '_Why am I even thinking about this? It's just a stupid presentation and all I need is a passing grade! That shouldn't be too difficult now, should_ _it_?'

This was all Stars fault. Why did she have to take this so seriously? All Paulina had wanted when telling the girl was getting rid of some steam and rant about her situation for a little. But no, the blond had to strike up a conversation, acting all worried and actually thinking about Paulina's predicament! It wasn't even real worry. No, it was the hypocritical kind of worry, the kind of worry that wasn't actually directed at another person but instead at oneself. In Star's case it was simply about what aftereffects Paulina failing the year could possibly have for herself, she was rather dependent on the Hispanic after all.

"Oh, would you just shut up?" Paulina snapped at Star angrily. She hadn't even listened to what the girl had been saying for the last few minutes, but she was sure it was just some dishonest semi-caring crap and she was not in the mood for this right now.

The blond had silenced immediately, looking a bit surprised at the dark haired girl's sudden outburst, but not overly shocked. She had no clue what she had said to set Paulina off, but she had known her long enough to be used to her fiery temper and sudden mood-swings, so she didn't even bother wondering about it. Though, she was relieved when she saw their teacher entering the room just seconds later. At least she would be spared from the uncomfortable silence that often followed when Paulina was in her sulking-mode, or whatever it was she got into regularly.

The Latina on the other hand wasn't all that happy to see their teacher. Because him entering meant the class was about to start and she really didn't like Spanish. Or rather, she loved the Spanish language, she just loathed the lessons. It was one of the few subjects in which she was really good, after all she spoke the language fluently thanks to her parents. Only that now she had to listen to their teacher going on and on about basic grammar and the right pronunciations of certain words. '_Now, if he only didn't suck so bad himself…_'

It was surprising how annoying it could be when you were better in the subject than the one teaching you. Listening to his school-spanish that, while free of grammatical errors, was just so…so _different_ from how people really talked, that it was plain weird and the girl often felt the need to bang her head against the table out of boredom. The only reason why she still stayed in the course was the same for which she entered – she needed the credits.

So, needless to say that once the lessons started, Paulina's thoughts were everywhere but on the formation of the 'indicativo imperfecto' and its different usage compared to the 'indicativo indefenido'…

'_Well, I should start with the basics…hair, eyes, height and so on_.' She thought, as she scribbled those things down on the sheet of paper in front of her. She had come to the conclusion that since the whole Fenton-dilemma - as she had just decided to dub it- was on her mind anyway, she could use the time now to write down all the questions she wanted him to answer, that way she would know exactly what to ask him later and the whole thing would get done even quicker. That and it was not as if she had anything else to do at the moment…

She looked down on her paper with a frown, reading over all the things she had written until now. She had to admit, she was slowly running out of ideas and all she had come up with were the standard questions that every internet profile entailed. _'I didn't think that this would be so difficult…in the end there really aren't that many things you can ask of a person…How am I supposed to make a real presentation out of this?'_

She twirled one of her long dark locks around her finger, a part of her noticing how this was slowly beginning to become a habit of hers whenever she was bored or thinking, while the rest concentrated on her problem.

She had never seen anybody else hold a presentation about a fellow classmate. Normally the only persons they were introduced to in school were famous and had some kind historical or political importance. They would hear a lot about those people's accomplishments and what opinions they had and stuff, so there was no way she could do it the same way with Fenton. What had he ever accomplished after all?

She looked at one of her more personal questions. '_Hobbies?_', written in small curly letters that had little hearts where the point of the _i_ should be - Paulina had always considered this to look cute and so she stuck with it ever since fourth grade. '_Okay, maybe not all that personal.._.'

What she needed to do was gather a lot of information on each point and not just some short answers. She'd need to know why he liked doing whatever he did in his free time, how often he did it, how long and so on so forth. Maybe even get an outline of Fenton's usual day…

'_Still, that's so dull… I need to spice this thing up __**somehow**_.'

After a good fifteen minutes she had to realize that there was nothing more she could do at the moment. She hadn't had any good idea that would make the whole thing a little more interesting yet and unless she was suddenly struck by inspiration, she had to deal with this for now.

So with nothing to do, she just stared at the blackboard with a vacant look, letting her mind wander for the remaining 30 minutes.

* * *

Danny dodged the incoming fist without much of a problem, backing up until he could feel the wall behind him. He knew he had it coming. Lady Luck had been favoring him unnaturally long anyway, at least in one aspect…

"Woah, Dash calm down!" he exclaimed as he saw the jock glaring angrily at him for evading his first strike.

"I'll show you calm, Fenturd!" he shouted as he practically threw himself at the other boy, shoulder first.

'Great, now he's starting to use football moves on me or what?' Danny thought annoyed, internally reading himself for the impact. It was not like he couldn't have avoided the other boy's attack, but he knew couldn't show too much agility without raising suspicion.

Dash's shoulder rammed him in the chest, positively knocking the air out of his lungs for a moment and pressing him against the wall even harder. A few seconds later he was already hurled back by the front of his shirt, coming face to face with the blond jock, who snarled at him. "You thought you could hide from me, didn't you Fenturd? You are such a pathetic chicken, you know?"

Danny took in a hissing breath and gritted his teeth. To Dash this actions just made the impression of his favorite victim trying not to show that he was in pain, causing the taller boy to grin down arrogantly. The truth of the matter however was, that Danny was trying his damned best not to deliver a punch of his own into the other's smug face. Dash's 'attack' had barely faced him – he was used to much worse and getting tackled by some overgrown guy's shoulder was nothing against getting thrown through a couple of walls or blasted by an ectobeam.

The black haired boy was suddenly thrown against a locker and not even a second later one of Dash's buddies had emptied a trashcan over his head. He could hear the laughter from the various bystanders that had formed a semi-circle around them, watching the whole display with interest. He felt sick in his stomach, the feeling only partially caused by the smell of the things he was now covered in.

"Hey, that actually suits you quite well." He heard Dash say "Now you even stink like the trash you are."

It was moments like these that his patience was wearing thin. Dangerously so. He couldn't help but wonder what _they_ would do if _he_ decided to play bystander when the next ghost attacked. _That_ would definitely be funny to watch. In all honesty, Danny felt a little guilty to admit that there had been a few occasions where he had stepped in to save someone from a ghost a little bit later than usual. Most of the times that was, when the person that was being endangered had pissed him of recently. In other words, it was Dash most of the time.

But he was never too late. He never waited until someone got hurt, not even Dash. His conscience just wouldn't allow him to stoop down to such a level and a good scare was the worst people had gotten until now.

Still, his patience was wearing thin and he could only hope he was not going to snap anytime soon. Because that would end bad – for them.

Oh, he wouldn't use his ghost powers, he wasn't stupid after all. But he didn't exactly need them to beat the crap out of Dash and his goons. So, yeah, he really hoped he would be able to contain his anger for a little longer, because beating up a group of guys that never had the slightest chance to begin with was just not his style. And it would totally kill his reputation.

Danny looked up from his position on the floor, where he had slid down after getting thrown around, at feeling someone tucking his sleeve and trying to help him up.

"Dude, you OK?" Tucker asked him, looking down at him worriedly.

"Never been better." He responded letting himself getting pulled up by his friend. "Ugh, that's disgusting…" he said, looking himself over and making a face at seeing all the things he was covered in.

"Yeah" Tucker agreed "But look at it positively - at least Dash won't pummel you like this. Wouldn't want to get his hand dirty after all."

"Great." Danny said sarcastically "Why didn't I think of this earlier? If I had known that being a walking dump would keep my enemies from beating me up, I would have already tried that out in freshman year already."

The techno geek just grinned in response, picking up a banana peel from the other teen's shoulder with his fingertips and throwing it to the floor. "Well, if you had, I'm sure more than just your enemies would have stayed away from you."

"Even if I'd love to have a Tucker-free day, I guess I should really clean myself up, huh?"

"That hurt deeply, you know?" the afro-American teen responded with faked sorrow in his voice and making a face befitting a kicked puppy.

Danny didn't comment further on this and instead took in his surroundings once again. There were still a few students lingering around, looking at him and talking to each other, but all in all the mass of onlookers had dissipated by now. Danny automatically checked his hoody, hoping his face was still shrouded in its shadow - he just didn't feel comfortable with others looking at him so intently.

He gestured Tucker to follow, making his way to the next best restroom, where he quickly hid in a stall, making himself go intangible to get rid of all that was covering him. When he was done his clothes looked perfectly clean, but the smell was still lingering around.

"Can't you get rid of that, too?" the dark skinned boy asked, leaning against the wall, turning up his nose.

"You think I wouldn't have already done so if I could?" Danny retorted annoyed, making his way out of the door and into the direction of his next class since break was soon over. "I think it has to do with it being in gas-form, solide objects are simplest to leave tangible when I turn myself intangible, watery stuff is harder and gases are pretty much impossible."

He turned his head around to see him just opening his mouth for an answer, as Danny collided with something hard.

"Hey, watch where you're going geek!" a girl's angry voice exclaimed with an Hispanic accent.

Already knowing who it was by her voice Danny turned to look at an annoyed looking Paulina. "Sorry, didn't see you there."

"No wonder, since you were looking everywhere but ahead." The girl huffed angrily, before looking at him with narrowed eyes. "I'll let it slide this time, since I actually need to talk to you anyway, but if this ever happens again…" she let the rest of her sentences go unsaid and Danny couldn't help but wonder what would happen then. Would she set the football-team on him or what? Well, he could already say that this thought didn't really terrify him, after all that was already pretty much the case…

"You needed to talk to me?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. What could Paulina possibly want to talk about with him?

The girl's eyes narrowed even further and her face got a disgusted look on it. "You stink." She said blatantly.

Danny frowned and his eyebrow rose even further. '_Did she just want to rub it in, or what?'_

"Really? I didn't notice. Thank you for this brilliant deduction, Sherlock. What would I do without you?"

Paulina glared at him. Was he actually mocking her? _'This little…'_

"You know, using soap when showering would probably help with this. But I guess showering at all would be a start… " This time it was Danny's turn to glare at the girl as she shot him an arrogant smirk.

"You said you wanted to talk or did you simply wish to insult me? If so I'm leaving because I really have better things to do than to listen to what you have to say." He said bluntly, causing the girl to look at him with slight shock. _'He. I bet she's so used to people practically dying to talk with her that she didn't see that coming' _he thought, grinning internally at the look on her face.

And he was right with this thought, Paulina hadn't expected to be treated so rudely. _Especially_ not by some loser!

"This is about English." She snapped "Don't you even think I would talk to you if it wasn't absolutely necessary!"

'_Ah, so that's it.'_ Danny thought, remembering his 'project'.

"I got cheerleader-training today, so my school is over at four. We will meet at the library at half past four to get this whole nonsense started. And you better be punctual." She gave him a once over, before turning around in a rather theatrical fashion, letting her long hair fly. "And take a bath before that." She added, before walking away from them, not spending them another glance.

"Ooookay…that was weird" Tucker voiced their shared opinion.

"Pretty." Danny agreed. "So, does that mean she's actually going along with Lancer's demand? Aww, shit. I've been hoping she would pull some strings and get us both spared the annoyance." Then he scowled, remembering the girl's last words. "And just who does she think she is, anyway? Ordering me around like that!"

"The school-diva. I told you so." His friend answered. "So, are you gonna be there?"

"I guess." Danny said, shrugging his shoulders. "I need the grade after all and if I piss her off too badly she might refuse to cooperate later on."

"So…you gonna bath?"

Danny grinned at his friend. "Nah, I don't want to be late after all – you heard her. And figuring out how to use soap would just take too long…"

* * *

Fuah! Done!

As I said, some Danny-Paulina interaction. Not much, but the next chapter starts with the library, so…

Writing this was horribly difficult sometimes and then at other times things seemed to come to me much quicker. I just hope I'm going to get better at this… oh well…

I dunno about Paulina's annoyance with Spanish. I just figured that if you were a native speaker and your teacher sucked you would be really annoyed. I mean I once had an English teacher who sucked sooo badly that even I was better than him – and I'm not even a native speaker. I guess if I had been, I would have flat out refused to go to the lessons… gah! Enough of me! I ramble too much…sorry ^^

I got holidays soon and finally (God finally! *sniff*) my exams are all over for now, so I'm hoping to update the next chappy before the end of this year. So, I wish you all a happy X-Mas in advance!

Thanx for reading!^^ Dracon Asahara


	7. Quality time

Hello, I'm back! Without much talk, here the next chapter and answers to your reviews!^^

**DBack47:** Hi there!^^ I'm happy you like the story so far. Sorry that my chaps aren't the longest, but I've never been good with putting a lot of things in a single chappie. But maybe it will make you happy to hear that this chapter is my longest so far? Oh well...on to your questions! Dash… I always wondered about him too when I watched the cartoon. I guess thinking up a reason why he is after Danny so much might be fun, and we will have a small inlook into the workings of his mind later on (Sounds kinda scary to me though….) Sam is definitely getting a part in this too. I might have kicked her out of the story for now, but I'm sure she'll fight her way back in^^ And about Danny's powers, yeah he got better – a lot. In this chap is a short fighting sequence, not much since I suck at writing fights, but it will be a small glimpse. Basically Danny got better with all his original powers and got a few new ones such as teleportation and so. Anyway, I hope you have fun reading this, DA

**KIxen:** Glad that you like it^^ Yeah, Danny isn't shy...*looks at chappie*…nope, he isn't….Thank you for the comment and much fun with the new chapter!

**Biisayowaq:** You speak Spanish? Cool! Yeah it must so suck to have to go over the basics in school…but anyway, thanks for the comment! I hope you'll like how things continue^^

**Holospartoi258: **Yeah, Danny is real cold. But he got a lot of stress, family problems and is in the middle of puberty, so I guess a certain amount of jerkiness is ok. And of course I also want him to be a bit of a jerk in this story…He still wants to protect everyone though and if someone got actually hurt he would feel miserable. Paulina is just plain difficult for me. The show portrayed her rather…simply and honestly if I were to make her as swallow as her character is in there, the whole DannyxPaulina thing would be impossible. I wanted to add some extra things, but they make it real hard to keep her in character since I still want her to be the bitchy high school diva as well. Sometimes it feels like I make her too smart, but then I remember that no one is completely dumb and that my Paulina might be perspective in some areas and a total idiot in others. I dunno myself as to how I will pull the pairing off…I mean, I have ideas of course, but I get the feeling things will get worse before they get better.^^° Thank you for reviewing! Hopefully you'll like the chap, DA

**Pterodactyl:** Gee, thanks for the nice review^^ Every time someone tells me they wouldn't have noticed that I'm not a native speaker if I hadn't said so, I get all giddy with happiness since I really love the language. I only got as far as I'm now because of reading so much anyway…and there people say being a nerd doesn't have its benefits! About the Typo words (and yes, I just learnt a new word!^^) I mess them up all the time, sorry. I mean, I actually know the differences, but even when proofreading my stuff my eyes just skip over them. I guess I'll have to be extra careful about them in the future^^ Thank you for your advice and I hope you'll like the new chapter!^^

A big thank you to all my reviewers!

Dracon Asahara

* * *

**Perspective lifes chapter 7**

**Quality time**

Looking in the mirror, Paulina readjusted her hair after pulling out the clips that normally kept annoying strands out of her face during practice. She gave a satisfied smile upon noticing that she looked as good as usual and that her makeup was still in place.

She stuffed her cheerleader-outfit in a duffel bag to get it washed at home and gave her image in the mirror on the inside of the locker one last glance before closing the door. She was now in her normal clothes again, a pink tank-top with white outlines of flowers on the left corner and white trousers that only went to her knees, leaving the rest of her legs exposed. Paulina rather liked that outfit, she thought it looked cute and the light colors gave a good contrast to her darker skin. That and it went well with her favorite handbag which was also white and from a famous designer.

The Hispanic was just about to leave the changing room when one of the other cheerleaders held her back. "Paulina, wait!" the girl with curly brown hair exclaimed. She wasn't fully dressed yet, running around in only a skirt and her bra, her hair still tied bag with a hair-gum. The girl was by Paulina's side in a second, leaving her place next to Star and another girl whom she had been speaking to just a moment ago.

" Star, Megan and me are planning to go to the mall and we wondered if you wanted to come along?" she asked happily. "You know this new clothes-store which is going to open next week? My cousin got a job in it and he said he might be able to get us in early."

Paulina raised one of her eyebrows. The girl – Claire, if she recalled correctly – was one of the younger students and only a freshman. She was quite good at acrobatics though, and since she didn't look half-bad Paulina, as the current captain of the cheerleading-squad, had decided to let her join, which had naturally put the girl on one of the lower places of the A-list as well.

"Your cousin got a job in it? Full- or Part-time?" Paulina surprised Claire by asking.

"Full-time. Why?"

"Just wondering. Is he planning to continue working for this shop or the chain it belongs to?" the older girl continued questioning.

"Eh…" Claire began, unsure why she was suddenly asked those questions when all she wanted was to get on good terms with one of her seniors. " I think he is planning to stay with them and try to become branch-manager or something like that, but I'm not quite sure…."

A smile formed on Paulina's face at the girl's words. '_Seems like in the end it was a good decision to accept her into the team._' If that cousin of hers was continuing his career in this shop, he was actually likely to have some success at it.

If there was one thing that everybody knew about Paulina, then it was her ability to always know the newest trend and to get her hands on clothes that weren't even available yet. It was an ability that had gotten her a lot of admiration and jealousy. People thought that she was just naturally good when it came to fashion and really - she _was_. That didn't however mean that she didn't have her own tricks to tell what was going to be 'in' and what was going to be 'out'.

Most girls that were on top of the fashion-scene in normal high-schools used the same trick. They looked at the pictures of stars in the internet. Not the old pictures, mind you, but the new ones that had just been updated several minutes ago at best. If one had a good eye for such things he could possibly see what trends the various teen-magazines were going to develop out of those shots. Stars were trendsetters after all and you were sure to be fashionable if you knew whom to copy.

Paulina took the whole thing only a little bit further. Ever since she was little she had seen how everything played together in the business world because of her father's work. And stars too were just part of the business world.

All she had to do was keep informed on their allegiances. What record-studio was working together with which clothe-stores? What company owned which labels and with which other companies was it working together? Which star often got presents from which designer? Whom best to talk into wearing your clothes if you wanted to reach a certain group of people?

For Paulina this method worked quite fine to predict the future happenings in the fashion-world. Sure, at the beginning it had been horribly confusing, but after some time, when she had the most important connections memorized and also gotten the hang of where to look, things had become simpler.

And it was also through this way of informing herself that she knew that the shop in which Claire's cousin was going to work in belonged to a chain which had just been bought by LEV-Corporation. Just one year ago LEV had also bought a small fast-foot shop and had soon afterwards started a whole chain out of it. Things seemed to run smoothly for them and so Paulina was quite sure that they were also going to expand their clothes-stores.

And if they were to become a big line, they would become a well known line and that meant they were sure to get the right connections to designers automatically.

So all Paulina had to do was stick to Claire a little, play her cards right and hope her cousin was not a complete idiot. After all, with a little talent it would be possible to get quite a good position for someone who started as one of the first workers in an expanding store-chain.

But speaking about Claire, the Hispanic noticed that the younger girl was looking at her rather worriedly. Obviously her questions had made her unsure. "I'd love to come!" Paulina exclaimed and could practically hear the other's relieved sigh "When are you going?"

"We were going to go there right now, since training is over and we have nothing else to do." Claire responded.

"Oh…" Paulina deflated slightly at the girl's last words. _Nothing else to do._

Just having remembered that she was planning to meet up with Fenton right after school, Paulina frowned. She really wanted to tag along with the other girls, but she couldn't just ignore her English-appointment either and recalling how horribly rude Fenton had been to her earlier that day, she had the feeling he wouldn't take lightly to being left standing there to wait.

"Is it ok if I come a by little bit later? I still have some things to do…" she asked her voice giving away quite a bit of the annoyance she was starting to feel towards the boy.

"Sure." The younger one answered quickly. "Just call when you're at the mall, so that we know when to pick you up."

"I will." Paulina answered her thoughts already drifting to the questions she had written down on her pad. She would just have to hurry up a bit, that couldn't be so difficult now, could it? It was a simple question-answer game after all…

It was only twenty minutes later that Paulina could be found making her way over to the main entrance of Amity's library. She was happy to note that Fenton was already waiting for her, sitting on one of the steps, chin in hand, looking bored out of his mind.

Upon coming near him however any satisfaction over him at least having heeded her advice to being punctual disappeared quickly. She just couldn't believe it – the guy still reeked! It was weaker than before but it was still there, that horrible smell from earlier that day. Sure, she had only been half-serious when telling him to take a bath but that was only because she had expected him to figure out that much on his own.

"Hey." The boy greeted upon seeing her.

"Don't 'hey' me!" the girl snapped back at his casualness. "I think I told you to get rid of that stench! Why do you still smell like…like **that?" **she asked, unable to come up with a good comparison that did not involve something disgusting.

"What? You mean my perfect imitation of a trash-bin?" he asked sounding slightly amused. "I rather like it. Really useful for self-preservation, you know? After the motto '_Odour á la Tuck - keeps evil spirits away and bullies at bay!' _But seeing that you are here I guess it doesn't work properly yet…."

Paulina just looked confused for a moment not getting what the other was actually trying to say with that. _'Then again, I most likely don't want to know…'_ she decided. Fenton was plain weird after all and if he wanted to run around stinking like he did, well she would just have to breathe through her mouth….

"Can we just get this started already?" she asked him, not in the mood to listen to his nonsense for longer.

The blue eyed boy just shrugged his shoulders and stood up, not wanting to make the whole thing harder than necessary either.

The two of them were soon seated at a small, secluded table in the back of the building, both not wanting to draw too much attention, even if for different reasons.

"So" Paulina started and pulled out the paper with her questions "I thought I would start by asking you some questions I prepared and all you have to do is answer."

Danny couldn't help feeling rather surprised at noticing that the girl had apparently prepared herself for their meeting. It seemed like she took the whole thing more serious than he had anticipated. Seeing her take out a pencil to write down his answers, Danny quickly followed suit and took out paper and pencil as well, ready to write down whatever she would ask. If she had already thought of good things to ask him, he could just ask the same things back after all, right?

"Well…" looking at her paper with a small frown Paulina had to admit she still wasn't all too proud of her questions, but she guessed it was better than nothing. "What's your favorite color?"

"Blue." Danny answered simply, copying the question on his own sheet of paper.

"Favorite food?"

"Pasta and milkshakes."

"Favorite animal?"

"Dunno, I like dogs…."

"Favorite band?"

"…Humpty Dumpty…." By now Danny had stopped writing down everything Paulina said and was giving her a doubtful look.

"Favorite - "

"Are you _**sure**_ that's how you want to proceed?" he interrupted her. It felt like he was back in kindergarten, introducing himself to his fellow four year olds. When she had said that she had prepared questions, he had honestly expected a little bit…._more. _The boy didn't receive an answer however and was silenced by a glare from the brunette.

"Tell me about your family." She demanded.

'_Well at least she changed strategy…still got to work on politeness though.'_

"My family…" Danny began "I guess that would be Mom, Dad, Jazz and me. What's there to say about them? I guess pretty much everybody in Amity already knows that Mom and Dad are ghost hunters and invent new weapons. And Jazz is…well she's Jazz, you know her – super smart and nosey."

Paulina frowned at his answer, he really hadn't said anything new. Well, besides his sister being nosey, what actually surprised her quite a bit. She still remembered the older Fenton sibling. Jazz had also been part of the A-list, even thought differently than the Hispanic herself. She had been one of those pretty, smart, popular and seemingly perfect girls that would end up on a college in ivy league and forget high-school as soon as they were out the door, diploma in hand and scholarships ahead.

"What is Jazz doing now that she's done with school?" Paulina asked.

"She's in Yale, studying psychology." Danny replied offhandedly.

'_Yep, ivy league…'_ the girl thought to herself, some things were just predictable _'Most be a real bummer for their purse, those colleges are expensive. It's surprising that they could afford it at all, the Fentons never made the impression of having too much money. Then again all that techno-stuff they have must be pretty costly….'_

"Do your parents earn a lot of money with all their weapons and ghost…devices?" she asked with honest curiosity.

Danny was silent for a moment, obviously not sure how to answer that question. "Well, not really. The government kind of funds their work since it's a 'new science' and they need people to do the pioneer-work. The ghost hunting is more of a hobby to them than anything else and they rarely get paid for it, but we have enough money to afford normal stuff."

"Then where did they get the money to pay for your sister's college?"

"Scolarship." The blue eyed boy answered curtly.

He preferred not having to think about how they could afford Jazz' studies. It was true, Jazz had gotten herself a scholarship, just that it only covered about half the money and they still had to get together the other half. And since that still was quite the sum, the money that their parents had laid aside for exactly that purpose hadn't been enough. To Jack the solution had been obvious. Whom else to turn to, than his good, old, billionaire college-pal?

For Danny it was horrible to know that they were indebted to the guy and he guessed his mother felt the same. Even though he had the feeling paying for her daughter's school had gotten Vlad into his Mom's better graces….

"What about yourself?" Paulina's voice interrupted his musings "What do you do in your free-time? What are your hobbies?"

"Eh…" Danny started intelligently. "Free time?"

"Yeah, free time – you know, the time after school is over until it starts again? What are you doing in it?" Paulina asked again, sounding slightly annoyed at having to repeat herself.

"Well, hanging out with Tucker I guess…"

"And?"

"We do…stuff?" Danny answered, quite aware that he must have sounded real stupid right now. But, really, what were you supposed to answer when your live revolved around fighting ghosts, talking about ghosts, keeping your own ghost powers a secret from your parents, fighting Valerie, ghosts and skipping school to fight ghosts? And did he mention trying to stay sane with all of this? Because that really took quite a lot of his energy, too.

"You do stuff?" Paulina parroted. Great, that was just what she needed, having to pull every bit of information out of his nose. What was with him anyway? Just a moment ago he was giving her at least acceptable answers that, while not long, were at least somewhat informative and now he couldn't even give her an answer to something as simple as his hobbies. "Seriously, if you are making this hard for me on purpose, you better stop this right now!"

"I'm not making this hard for you on purpose!" Danny defended himself.

"Then just give me a straight answer! _What do you do in you free-time?_"

"Uh…video games?" he tried "Yeah, video games. Tuck and me play video games. All the time."

The Hispanic clenched her teeth in anger. This stupid freak was messing with her wasn't he? And because of him she had to spend her time with a freak in a library instead of with her friends in a new shop! "You didn't give me a straight answer – again!" she exclaimed, aggravated.

"What? Why? It was a perfectly straight answer!"

"It was not!"

"Was too!"

"You even formulated it as a question!" By now Paulina's voice had risen to a level unfit for a library and she looked around worriedly for the librarian hoping he hadn't hurt her small outburst and would now come and throw them out. When no one seemed wanting to berate her for the noise she turned back to the boy across from her.

"You know what?" she hissed "I'm just gonna go with your stupid 'video games', it's not like I couldn't care less about what you do in your free time after all. But I swear if you don't come up with other things _right now,_ I'm going to seriously hurt you!"

Danny scoffed. "Hurt me? What are you going to do? Claw my eyes out with those perfectly manicured nails of yours?"

"Please, I wouldn't ruin my nails over someone like you." Paulina answered arrogantly, her teal eyes narrowed. "I was thinking of disembodiment with the help of a lot of pointy objects…."

"I've heard so much worse." The boy grinned back, thinking about a certain ghost that would love to have his pelt on the wall. "And pointy objects are totally outdated, you use the blunt ones…."

"What? But blunt o-" the girl stopped herself from finishing her question. What was she doing, taking part in that guys idiocy? "Argh, let's get back on track already, I have better things to do than being here and wasting my time by discussing with you."

"Same for me." Danny agreed and then added with a serious voice. "You know what they say: don't argue with an idiot – she will drag you down on her level and beat you by experience. So arguing with you is pretty pointless, I guess…"

"Wait, are you calling me an idiot?" the Hispanic asked, slightly shocked at being insulted so casually. Sure, even she got insulted sometimes but that was mostly by girls and more often out of jealousy than not. Being insulted by a guy however was a foreign concept to her and this one had already done it more than one time today….

"Am I?" Danny asked back, fake confusion layering his voice and a thoughtful look on his face.

"You just did!"

"Did I?" he asked, sounding clueless. Going on Paulina's nerves was actually quite fun…

"Yes!"

"Hmm…you sure?"

" Of course I am su-" Paulina halted. Damn, that guy was messing with her _again_ and she was even playing along! "Hobbies. Let's just continue with your hobbies…" she grit out.

"You know, you're not very good at changing topics…." Danny noted. "And wouldn't it be my turn now?"

"I didn't _change_ topic, I'm trying to get back on the original one! And what do you mean 'your turn'?"

"Well, until now, you asked all the questions." The boy explained "Kinda unfair, since we both have to do this project, don't you think?"

The Hispanic frowned. She had nearly forgotten that Fenton had to do a presentation about her too. "I'm going to answer your questions if you give me a _proper_ response as to what your hobbies are."

"Just write…" the blue eyed boy was silent for a moment before continuing "Hanging around with Tuck and Val, cinema, homework, family….the usual, you know?"

Paulina gave him a skeptical look. _'Either his hesitation means he is lying or he is really plain boring….But really, 'homework'? Everyone would know that that is a lie, Fenton never has his homework in school…'_

"So I get to ask you questions now?" Danny answered, getting his own pen ready again.

"Whatever."

"Favourite animal? Food? Color?"

Paulina blinked, weren't those her own questions? "Hey, you stole my ideas!" she accused after confirming that he had indeed just written down her own questions on his paper.

"Come on, you can't really call those ideas. Or take claims - Those questions are laughable."

"Well, if they are so laughable, why are you copying them?"

Danny just opened his mouth for a retort when he quickly shut it close again.

"What, no witty answer? Admitting you were just stealing?" Paulina asked smugly at seeing the other stiffen. When the boy across from her suddenly shot up from his seat however she couldn't help but flinch at the sudden movement.

"Hey, where are you going?" she asked at seeing him grab his bag and walk away from her.

"Toilet!" the boy called over his shoulder before disappearing between the rows of bookshelves.

Paulina just sat there for a moment, staring dumbly at the place where she had lost sight of the boy. The first question that formed in her head being; '_Why did he take his bag with him?_' and then '_isn't the toilet in the other direction?'_. She had to admit, she wasn't all that proud that it took her another minute to realize that Fenton had just pulled one of his infamous disappearance-acts on her and was _not_ going to the toilet or coming back anytime soon.

Once she did realize it however, the words coming out of her mouth were not kind ones. There she was, giving up her precious time and that idiot just walked out on her! She knew she should just have gone with Star and Claire, that would have actually been worthwhile. _'Nothing holding me back from going there right now, though.'_ Fenton had been the first one to leave after all, so who was she to stay and wait for him when he might not even come back?

With this plan in mind Paulina packed her things and made her way out of the library and over to the next bus-stop. Luckily the mall was only a few stations away and so she would be there in no time. Deciding to use the time she had to wait for the next bus to arrive wisely, she pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed Stars number. It took only a few rings for the other to pick up.

'Wah! Eh…hello?'

"Star, it's me Paulina. I'm coming to the mall now. Are you guys still with Claire's cousin?"

'We..ah!' came Star's voice from the other side of the line before a weird sound could be heart in the took the blond a few moments before she finished her reply. 'Yeah, we are but…the situation is –ouch!'

The Hispanic girl frowned, what was going on at mall to have her friend so distracted? "Star, you still there?"

'Yes, I am.' Came the slightly breathless sounding reply 'Ah, there he is! Finally!'

"Who is where? What are you talking about?" Paulina asked. She was really getting annoyed at not receiving a proper answer from the blond. She already had that with Fenton.

'Danny Phantom.' Star finally explained 'There is a ghost fight and Phantom just arrived, looks like the other ghost – woah that must hurt!'

Paulina clenched her teeth at the other girl's words. Danny Phantom? Danny Phantom was at the mall and she was missing it because of Fenton? Even if she didn't believe him to be her one and only true love anymore, that didn't mean that she wasn't a fan! And a big one at that! So now because of that freak she had to do this stupid English-appointment, spend her time with him in a library, get insulted, miss out on going with Claire and was now also missing Danny Phantom fight! To the teal eyed girl this was the last straw, there was one thing she was certain of now.

She hated Danny Fenton.

* * *

Danny had barely felt any guilt when abandoning Paulina in the library. Okay, none at all. But who could blame him? After all he was running off to save the town from another of its random ghost attacks and that was definitely a good thing to do. Also, the girl's mood had not been the best either, even if he knew he had partially provoked that.

At the moment he was hovering in the air high above Amity, his ghostly tail swinging under him lazily and the sun blinding him. His ghost-sense had gone off not even a minute ago and he had changed into his ghostly alter-ego as soon as he was away from prying eyes.

The boy closed his eyes and concentrated on the inner chill of his ghost sense. He still had to locate the exact place of the actual attack since the range in which he could feel ghosts had grown a lot over the last years and his ghost sense now covered all of Amity Park. In theory that meant the ghosts could be anywhere from the school, to his home, to the park… but Danny could still find them easily with a little concentration. He was even able to tell what ghost it would be in advance, since every single one got an unique signature which he had just recently learnt to feel.

A few seconds later he opened his eyes again, sure of where he had to go. It wasn't all that far just a few blocks down the street. At the mall or the cinema, Danny wasn't quite sure, but guessed he would see once he was there.

And he was right. It took no time at all for him to get there, his form just a black blur in the sky. Once he arrived at the scene he could already see the usual signs of an attack; hordes of panicking people leaving the local shopping-center in masses. _'The mall it is…'_

Phantom turned intangible and invisible as he dove down towards the big building with its glass-fronts. That way he could not only phase through the walls, but was also keeping the already panicked citizens from freaking out further once they noticed him. For some reason or another his appearance always made the chaos bigger. He didn't know why some people got even more panicked upon seeing him when he was only trying to help, but he guessed it had to do with him being a ghost and them currently running from one.

Inside the building orientation was a little harder but the half-ghost just flew in the direction everyone was running away from. A part of him noticed that not everyone seemed as frightened as one would expect when being attacked by a supernatural being, since a few persons were actually walking at a normal pace, looking slightly annoyed at being run into so often and having their shopping-trip interrupted.

'Seems like you can get used to everything, huh?' Danny thought bemused, watching two teenagers actually sit down on a table in a deserted coffee shop as if waiting for the whole thing to blow over.

The white haired teen was just about to round a corner when a sudden noise nearly caused him to lose intangibility and fly into the wall face first. It sounded worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. The sound was high and metallic and screeched horribly. It was vibrating in through the halls and Danny quickly covered his ears, fighting the dizzy spell that suddenly hit him.

"Woah, fuck! What the heck was that? That sounds even worse than Jazz singing in the shower!" he exclaimed when the noise had ebbed away. People around him had also stopped running to cover their ears and a few had to lean against the walls in order to stay standing

'_Maybe I should hurry up a bit.'_ He thought to himself, speeding up again.

Finding the origin of his still lasting vertigo was no problem once he entered the middle part of the centre. There, in front of a music store was none other than the infamous ghost-singer Ember McLain, her guitar in hand and at least a dozen of bass boxes all around her.

"Hey, Ember! You think you could tune it down a bit?" Danny called out to her "There were some complaints. Seems like people want to keep their hearing intact after all."

The female ghost looked up at him her blue hair burning brighter for a moment and a grin forming on her face. "It's you, dipstick! I knew you would come."

"Really, did you? And what gave you the idea?" Danny asked mockingly. "Maybe the fact that I appear _every single time_ one of you guys decides to go for world domination again?"

"Yeah, that pretty much gave it away." Ember shot back, before turning to her guitar and turning a knob. "But this time I got a little surprise for you!" she yelled before hitting the chords.

Out of habit Danny had prepared himself to dodge another of those giant pink fists she always threw around. However, when instead of a ectoplasma-fist the same tone as before hit him he just barely managed to cover his ears and keep himself hovering.

This time the disorientation was a lot stronger than before due to the closer range of the attack and Danny had to use all his concentration on staying in the air and not involuntary turning human.

'_Damn, that trick was definitely new.'_ his mind managed to come up with between all the whirling the room seemed to do. _'Yay for enchanted hearing in ghost form…'_

"What, can't take a little noise?" Ember mocked him and her grin made him very tempted to shove those words right back into her mouth by showing her what _he_ understood under a little noise. _'Let's see her deal with a ghostly wail, __**that**__ would be fun to watch.'_

He glared at the blue haired ghost. He had to admit the girl wasn't all that stupid. She knew that he was far stronger than her in terms of power and was thus trying to handicap him in advance. He was just trying to stop the room from spinning when he saw that the female ghost was just about to plug in the boxes to amplify her guitar's sound with it.

'_Shit, if that was without amplifier right now, I don't want to know what she can do __**with**__ one!'_

Seeing the singer's hand reach for the cord on the floor he did the only thing he could do with his balance still being a little too off to fly around. He fixated the spot right in front of Ember and teleported, leaving green wisps of smoke where he had just been a moment ago.

"Ouch…" he mumbled when landing on his but rather ungracefully. Blinking away a few black spots he noted that teleportation plus dizziness definitely added up to even more dizziness.

"You know, Ember." He started, directing his attention towards his foe again and crossing his legs to sit more comfortably. "That's a neat new trick you got there but it won't help you much. I will still kick your ass and send you back into the ghost-zone. So why don't you make this simpler on both of us and just give up?"

"Stand up, dipstick!" the singer retorted, sounding rather pissed at seeing her enemy sit on the very cord she needed.

"So, the hard way then?" Danny sighed.

"Stand UP!" the singer shouted, getting her guitar ready to blast the half-ghost.

"Uh-oh!" Danny exclaimed and quickly sunk into the floor before another of those sound-waves could hit him. There in the relative safe silence of the mall's underground-levels he had an idea and quickly split himself in two. His clone just turned invisible, while the original Danny flew up again and phased through the concrete.

"Tell you what." He said, watching the singer plug the cord into her guitar, "Your music sucks and making it louder won't change anything."

Ember smiled darkly upon turning the regulator on her guitar to maximum. "Any last words, dipstick?" She asked, positioning herself in her usual battle-stance, ready to let loose her strongest attack yet.

"Yeah, your insults suck too."

With that Ember hit the strings with ferocity. The only sound that resonated however was the crackling of her fiery mane and a small snort from behind her. Shocked she looked up at Phantom who was still hovering in front of her, not looking the last bit surprised, before turning her head towards the origin of the sound. There, leaning against the wall casually and whirling around a cable happily was Phantom, or at least his clone.

"Hey, you unplugged the boxes!" the singer exclaimed angrily.

"Yeah and you turned your back to your enemy." came the other Phantom's voice suddenly from behind her and before she even had the time to turn back she got blasted into the next wall by an emerald beam.

Danny didn't waste any time and quickly pulled out his thermos. Uncapping it, he directed the beam of light at Ember, who was still trying to get back up from his sneak-attack. She could only send him one last glare, her green eyes glowing dangerously before getting sucked in.

"I told her I would win, but did she listen?" the boy sighed to himself.

He looked around, surveying the property damage. It could be worse – _he_ had seen much worse. A few of the storefronts were damaged, the windows broken and the items at display thrown in disarray. The worst seemed to be the music shop from which Ember had gotten her amplifiers. Obviously she had disagreed with having a storefront altogether and now the shop was a little more inviting than the owner had originally planned.

Obviously his short fight had drawn attention and he could see people coming out of their hiding places all around him. Most of them had been in nearby stores, too scared to run for fear that they would draw the ghost-rockers attention.

Not wanting to stay around until it finally got through everyone's head that he had won and all the attention would be turned unto him, he made his way towards the ceiling. Once outside he turned tangible again and rose up until he was several yards above the vicinity.

'_Should I go back to the library or straight home?'_ The teen wondered to himself. The fight hadn't lasted all that long and if he went right back to the library now he would have only been gone for fifteen, twenty minutes top. But he quickly disregarded that idea. This was Paulina he was thinking about, she most likely left as soon as he had been out the door. And even if not, he would have to explain his sudden disappearance to her and deal with the girl in an even fouler mood.

No, there was no point in going back, he would just wait until he saw her again in school and then tell her something about stomach-aches or similar.

Having made his decision the teen flew off towards his own house, which was visible even from great distance thanks to his parents' op-center on top of it.

It was nearing five in the evening and Danny guessed his mom would be happy to see him home early for once. Maybe he should help out with the chores for a bit. His parents were still sour with him after all and the boy could always feel the tenseness developed when he was around. So maybe helping out his mom or a bit would really be a good thing.

* * *

Ha, I'm uploading on new-years eve! But here in Europe it's still the old year, so I got the chapter up in 2010!^^

'Bout the chap…Danny's a spazz.^^ He is still clumsy and not very careful at times, but at least now he got the power necessary to fight his way out of uncomfortable situations. I'm planning to get Jazz into the next chapter somewhere and I guess Vlad might have a little appearance as well. Enough spoiler for now ^^ I hope I'll see you guys next chapter! By by and:

**I wish all of you a good new year and a great Sylvester (If you also celebrate it that is)! Here we come 2011!**

Greetings everyone,

Dracon Asahara


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